600 kg Unfit Paneer Bound for City Destroyed

GURUGRAM: Around 600 kg of paneer being taken in drums for supply to food business operators in the city was found unfit for human consumption during an inspection on Friday night and destroyed on Saturday, officials said. Haryana Food and Drug Administration commissioner Manoj Kumar monitored the action.

Two vehicles were stopped by police at Rojka Meo. One carried about 500 kg and the other about 100 kg. The food safety team was called for inspection. The driver told officials the paneer was being transported from Bajidpur in Punhana for supply to various food business operators in Gurugram.

Authorities found the consignment unsatisfactory for human consumption. Samples from both vehicles were collected and will be sent to a laboratory for testing. It was not immediately specified which field checks had already indicated the product was unfit before the full lab report. The entire quantity was destroyed by burying it in a pit at the site on Saturday, preventing it from entering the food supply chain.

Interception, destruction and wider crackdown

Nuh deputy commissioner Akhil Pilani said the administration would intensify the crackdown on such units and coordinate with other departments, including the pollution control board, to act against establishments found violating norms.

The seizure sits against a wider state push on dairy adulteration and analogue paneer. The Food and Drug Administration commissioner has issued a one-year statewide prohibition under Section 30(2)(a) of the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006, covering analogue or non-dairy paneer and barring preparation using milk powder or vegetable oil. Officials have been told to seize stocks and start criminal prosecution under the Act where violations are found.

For Gurugram's restaurants, sweet shops and caterers, the practical risk is consignments arriving from neighbouring districts without clear cold-chain or quality paperwork. Destroying the load at the interception point stops the product at the gate, while lab samples will decide what further legal action follows against suppliers.

Police and food safety teams working the Nuh-Gurugram corridor have made the Rojka Meo stretch a frequent check point for dairy moving toward the city. Saturday's burial of 600 kg closes this consignment, but the lab results will show whether the case stays a destruction action or widens into prosecution of the supply chain that was aiming at Gurugram kitchens.

City kitchens that buy bulk paneer from outside municipal limits will need tighter supplier checks while the statewide analogue-paneer ban remains in force. A destroyed consignment at Rojka Meo does not name a Gurugram restaurant, but it shows how close unfit stock can get to the city's food trade before a roadside inspection stops it.