Hyderabad: A year after “adulterated ghee” supply at Tirupati temple in Andhra Pradesh, and the nationwide uproar later following Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu’s claim of “animal fat in laddu prasadam”, the TTD is finally equipped with a modern food and ghee testing lab, with equipment donated by the National Dairy Development Board, Gujarat.
The Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams, an independent body operating under the auspices of the state government, manages the famous Sri Venkateswara Swamy temple, where the famed laddus are offered as a divine blessing to millions of devotees.
The newly set up Food Quality Testing Laboratory in Tirumala was inaugurated Tuesday by TTD chairman B.R. Naidu along with executive officer (EO) Syamala Rao.
“Till now, there was no facility to test the quality of ghee in Tirumala, and now for the first time, equipment like GC (gas chromatograph) and HPLC (high performance liquid chromatograph) have been installed, which have the ability to instantly analyse the adulteration and quality of ghee,” Rao told reporters.
Even as the Tirupati temple attracts millions of pilgrims every year and lakhs of laddus and free meals are served to devotees daily, a lab to test the quality of food items, including the celebrated laddus, and ingredients used, has been a glaring absence for decades.
The lack of a sophisticated lab was felt more so last July when certain batches of “pure cow ghee” supplied by private contractors were detected to be grossly sub-standard based on the sensory perception of TTD experts.
The samples suspected to be adulterated were then sent for testing to the National Dairy Development Board’s Centre for Analysis & Learning in Livestock & Food (NDDB-CALF) in Anand.
The test reports suggested the presence of lard, tallow and fish oil in the samples of ghee collected from four tankers sent by Tamil Nadu-based A.R. Dairy in the first half of July.
A.R. Dairy, which supplied ghee in June and July, was later blacklisted, even as the agency vehemently denied any wrongdoing and company executives also questioned the lab report.
“Earlier, samples had to be sent to other states to test the quality of items like prasadams and ghee. But now we have a lab with state-of-the-art equipment to conduct such tests directly here in Tirumala,” said chairman Naidu.
I.Y.R. Krishna Rao, who was Andhra Pradesh chief secretary during Naidu’s previous term as CM, welcomed the lab set up.
“Good that at least now, TTD got the lab established. It will help curb adulteration of ingredients supplied while serving as a deterrent for unscrupulous suppliers,” Rao, who also served as TTD EO earlier, told ThePrint.
The matter of ghee adulteration is under probe by a Central Bureau of Investigation-director supervised special investigation team, according to the Supreme Court orders last October.
Also Read: Naidu’s ‘animal fat’ in Tirupati laddu claim sets off political row, YSRCP denies allegation
What happened last year
In September last year, months after taking over as CM, Naidu had claimed that the laddus offered to Lord Venkateswara were made with inferior ingredients during the previous YSRCP regime and that “most painfully animal fat was used in place of pure ghee”. The YSRCP had vehemently denied the claim.
Naidu said the sentiments of millions of devotees were hurt on discovering the truth of how the laddus were being prepared before his government came to power in June.
However, according to Syamala Rao, who took over as EO of the temple trust days after the Naidu-led alliance formed a government in the state on 12 June, the “adulterated ghee” said to be contaminated with fish oil, lard and beef tallow, besides other elements like vegetable oil, was supplied in July.
Of the 10 tankers supplied by A.R. Dairy, cow ghee in four tankers was perceived to be of inferior quality by the TTD experts.
Samples from these four tankers—two of which had arrived on 6 July and the others on 12 July—were collected and sent to NDDB-CALF labs in Anand for adulteration tests.
Following the CM’s claims in September, ThePrint, quoting Syamala, had reported that the suspected ghee was never used to make the venerated laddu at the temple potu (sacred kitchen).
The four tankers kept aside were sent back to A.R. Dairy after the NDDB CALF report reflected animal and vegetable fat contamination.
Addressing a press conference in Tirumala in September, Syamala said the samples were sent to external labs (NDDB-CALF) for testing for the “first time in the history of TTD”.
A TTD report submitted to CM Naidu following the row had expressed concern that some suppliers took advantage of “poor-quality control systems i.e., lack of testing equipment for adulteration and not sending samples for external lab testing” and were quoting very low unviable rates between Rs 320 and Rs 411 per kg for ghee in their tender.
To check this gap, an expert group recommended the formation of a sensory panel with a scientific lab to test ghee purity on hedonic scale, where at least seven should be scored on a nine-point scale.
It was at that time that the NDDB offered to donate ghee adulteration testing equipment costing Rs 75 lakh.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)