``K R Ravindra not only quotes what apparently suits his purpose (Fewer cows cannot produce more milk, Common Cause, The Financial Express on Sunday, June 13), he carefully avoids quoting what does not, and studiously draws wrong conclusions. The report he mentions is clearly the recently published India Livestock Sector Review: Enhancing Growth and Development produced by the World Bank as part of the South Asia Rural Development Series. The paragraph in the report (page 5) which is mentioned by Ravindra, begins as follows:

``The cattle population increased to 195 million in 1987 but declined by 2 per cent to 193 million in 1992 (Annexe Table 2.1a).''

The rest of the paragraph which Ravindra carefully avoids quoting runs on as follows:

``This declinecan be attributed to the increasing yield per animal, the shift to small ruminant production in the more degraded areas and the reduced dependence on cattle for draft power as mechanised alternatives became more widespread, especially in the irrigated areas. In contrast the buffalo population grew by about 10 per cent over the same period, except during the 1987-92 period when the growth rate dropped to 2.3 per cent.''

The report goes on to state: ``As livestock populations expanded, output from most livestock categories also grew (Table 2.1).... Despite the two per cent drop in cattle numbers, total cow milk output increased by 7.5 per cent between 1988-92, partly a result of the increasing number of crossbred cows.

``In being selective Ravindra deliberately and carefully paints an ugly picture of rampant and widespread adulteration resulting from a decline in cattle population based on `statistics' of doubtful veracity. This amounts to suppressing the truth and glorifying falsehood. At the same timethere is no denying the fact that there is a certain amount of adulteration taking place in pockets in some areas around Delhi. Almost all of it can be attributed to the private and unorganised trade. The real issue is that synthetic milk is a post-liberalisation phenomenon. Private entrepreneurs want quick returns on their investment and they want to reach maximum output in the first year itself. If there is a limited amount of raw material (milk), they resort to producing synthetic milk.''

K R Ravindra replies:

It is appreciable that the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) has felt accountable to the problem of adulteration of milk in the country. The very fact that NDDB responded to the article shows that the board is alive to this countrywide menace. That NDDB itself has recognised that a serious problem exists proves that something drastic has to be done to book the culprits and arrest the growth of this anti-social element.

In highlighting the problem of milk adulteration, one is nottrying to ignore the enormous contribution NDDB has made in the direction of either milk production in the country or NDDB's role in keeping the multinational companies under check.

However, in his zeal to defend the board, NDDB senior general manager (PR) Sharad Bailur seems to have forgotten that there are others too in the country who are also equally, if not more, interested in the well-being of the nation and its people. Otherwise, he would not have cast aspersions on sources dubbing them as ``doubtful veracity.''

Delhi-based Bharatiya Cattle Resource Development Foundation (BCRDF) managing trustee Laxmi Narayan Modi says he had to take up the campaign against the scourge of milk adulteration because NDDB failed to agree for a tie-up in this regard. Though a top-ranking executive of NDDB agreed initially for a tie-up to fight the menace of milk adulteration, but later on he did not formalise any concrete step on these lines, says Modi.

As for the doubts in the minds of the NDDB officials regardingthe veracity of The Financial Express on Sunday sources, Modi points out that the sources are authentic as the sources referred to belong to either the World Bank report or the Indian agricultural and animal husbandry ministries or the Planning Commission and the Indian Dairy Association among others.

Now, if NDDB wants to doubt the veracity of all these sources, then it is definitely a pointer to the pathetic state of our administration! For, whether one likes it or not, there is no way of wishing away either the World Bank report or the Planning Commission comments or the observations by union ministries from time to time. In fact, a recent case in Delhi has further exposed the loopholes with which our system has been functioning. Unfortunately, this incident too involved NDDB.

According to a report in The Indian Express (July 11, 1999), the Delhi Milk Scheme (DMS) authorities had to stop buying any milk powder from the Mehsana unit of Milk Products Union ``till the investigations arecompleted.'' Here the investigation refers to the detection of certain bags of milk powder adulterated with soapstone. From a consignment of 1,760 bags of milk powder dispatched from the Mehsana unit, certain bags were tampered with along the route to Delhi. Some 22 bags were mixed with soapstone powder. The crime branch of the Delhi Police had booked the case for further investigation in July 1999.

To avoid such tampering of bags in future, responsible vigilant officers from NDDB or any other appropriate agencies may have to be posted along the route to the destination. This suggestion may sound far-fetched, but as the criminals have been gaining stronger roots, some kind of drastic action may have to be initiated to protect the unsuspecting and gullible consumers. Unsuspecting, because the Indian consumers trust the system; gullible, because they are still not equipped to test the products at their door step.

After all, NDDB would not like its consignments to be tampered with by unscrupulous elementsand bring the board's good name into disrepute. Milk being an extra-sensitive product, factory-to-user-level vigilance seems to be the only option left for the authorities to protect the consumers from criminal elements.

In fact, the Ahmedabad-based Consumer Education and Research Society (CERS) has been demanding the upgradation of standards in this respect for quite some time now. According to CERS, ``Our microbial results raise a grave concern on the safety of milk we consume, especially when there are no mandatory standards under the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act. Even the voluntary standards of the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) assess contamination only at the factory level, not at the consumer's door step. So CERS proposes that standards should be laid down to assess the milk as consumer gets it, not what leaves the factory''.

It is clear that a large portion of our production and distribution system is full of loopholes. Besides milk, this point has been proved beyond a shred of doubtduring the mustard oil adulteration crisis of 1997-98 in which thousands fell prey to dropsy disease across the country thanks to the adulteration of mustard seeds with the poisonous seeds like argimone mexicana (satyanashi or dhattoor seeds).

Under such circumstances, it becomes imperative that we strengthen our system to make it foolproof instead of raising doubts about the veracity of ``sources'' of the newspaper stories.

Knowledgeable sources have also pointed out to the fact that a Union minister (Raghuvansh Prasad) in the United Front government had to quit or had to be eased out because he insisted that the NDDB transactions be brought under the scrutiny of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India. NDDB is understood to have stuck to its own method of auditing instead of through CAG.