The Department of Food Technology and Quality Control (DFTQC) has frozen the production and distribution of five companies of different brands of mineral waters after they failed to renew permission letter in time despite repeated notice from public media.
Uttam Kumar Bhattarai, director general of the DFTQC said those companies facing action are Ayush Beverage --producer of Aqua King, Ichangu Drinking Water and Beverage-- producer of Aqua Drops, Pashupati Spring Water Industry-producer of Aqua Express, and Balaji Mineral Water-producer of Aqua Nice.
“Those products are also found not to have met standard as specified by the government,” Bhattarai told the press on Sunday.
Similarly, officials of the DFTQC said six brands of edible oils-Family brand mustard oil (1 liter and 500 ml packet), Dhara brand mustard oil (1 liter and 500 ml packet) and Shakti brand soybean oil ( 1 liter and 500 ml ) were found to have not met the minimum standard quality set by the government.
“All six brands of edible oil that we collected from six different places of Kathmandu valley, were found sub-standard,” said Bhattarai.
The Officials have suspected that Family and Dhara brand mustard oil packet might have been adulterated with soybean oil where as they have expressed suspicion on the quality of Shakti brand soybean oil.
“We have given seven days to the producers of those brands to make their clarification with technical facts to prove their product´s quality, within days” said Bhattarai.
Bhattarai said different dairies have also been instructed to mention the label of their products in the packets.
According to DFTQC, 41 brands out of 71 brands of mineral waters and 15 brands out of 40 brands of milk have renewed their permission letters from the DFTQC.
“We can´t confirm the quality of brands of mineral water and milk that have not renewed permission from the DFTQC” Bhattarai said.
The DFTQC has filed 45 cases against different companies during the year 2008/09 after they are found producing and distributing sub standard products which were not meeting government set standard. A total 95 samples of different food items were collected.
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