The ordinance will give powers of search, seizure in the premises of the production of synthetic milk and arrests of concerned persons.

After the Allahabad High Court took suo motto notice of the press reports and admitted a public interest litigation on this subject and issued notices to the UP and the union governments and desired that both the governments take adequate measures in the matter, the centre convened a meeting of state health secretaries.

The consensus in this meeting was that the states should first amend their existing laws at their level on the pattern of laws existing in West Bengal to face this situation, failing which the centre will take up the onus of issuing an ordinance.

The centre is of the view that a large supply of synthetic milk is from UP. It has decided to extend all possible help to the UPgovernment to curb this menace. It has decided to help the states in upgrading food testing laboratories. Centre is also examining the possibilities of mandatory applications of certain standards developed on milk by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS). BIS has developed separate standards of specifications for pasteurised milk, sterilised milk and flavoured milk.

BIS has also laid down certain methods of tests for rapid examination of milk, chemical analysis of milk, bacteriological analysis of milk vide standard number IS 1479. Another standard IS 12333 lays down methods for determination of total solid content in milk, cream and evaporated milk. There is also a standard specification for mobile kit for milk testing. This is based on the mobile kit evolved at the National Dairy Research Institute, Karnal which prescribes the apparatus and reagents which may be conveniently kept in a mobile kit for rapid examination of milk.

The kit has facilities for carrying out tests like organoleptic test andtemperature measurement, density measurement, sediment test, determination of pH, clot-on-boiling test, alcohol test, alizarin-alcohol test, ten-minute resazurin test, determination of acidity, determination of fat, determination of solids-not-fat, detection of cane sugar, detection of carbonates, detection of mastitis and detection of starch.

The reagents used for testing are alcohol-alizarin, resazurin solution, phenolphthalein indicator, sodium hydroxide 0.1 N, ethyl alcohol 68 per cent by weight, sulphuric acid sp gr 1.84, amyl alcohol sp gr 0.803 to 0.805 at 27øC, rosalic acid, concentrated hydrocholric acid, resorcinol vial 5 gram and iodine solution one per cent. Besides the kit contains 41 testing apparatus.

As this mobile kit may not be able to detect all the contents in the synthetic milk, the centre has decided to upgrade the facilities in the existing laboratories with a view to strengthen the detection of synthetic milk.

The BIS standard for sterilised milk specifies the determination ofcreaming index, turbidity, pH, titratable acidity, bacterial spores and sampling of sterilised milk. In the standard for pasteurised milk, it is stated that pasteurised milk shall show negative phosphatase test.