NGO alleges packaged milk sold not fit for drinking

A Ludhiana-based NGO today alleged that testing of samples of packaged milk being sold in Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh has found them unfit for consumption due to presence of harmful bacteria.

We tested the samples at an international lab headquartered in Switzerland on two basic parameters, the Total Plate Count (TPC) which shows the bacteria count in milk and Coliform Count which is used as a general indicator of sanitary conditions’ Rajiv Tandon, President of Consumer Protection Force, told reporters here.

The TPC for pasteurised milk as per industry norms is 30,000 cfu/ml. If the TPC is more than 50,000 cfu/ml, then the milk is unfit for human consumption, he said

Tandon claimed that the lab results showed the TPC in all the brands tested ran into lakhs ranging from 10,00,000 cfu/ml to 6,60,00,000 cfu/ml.