Officials from the Food Safety Department seized 600 kg of artificially ripened mangoes from the Ooty Municipal Market on Thursday.
A team of food safety officials, led by Karunanidhi, Designated Food Safety Officer, the Nilgiris, along with food safety officer D. Sivakumar and other officials conducted a routine check inside the market. They were checking for chemicals such as carbide stones used to artificially ripen fruits, but were shocked to find that the merchants were now using ethylene powder kept inside boxes of fruits to ripen the mangoes.
The officials seized all 600 kg of the fruit, worth around ₹ 60,000 and destroyed them.
After the raid at the market, the officials also visited a few shops on Commercial Street and adjoining areas and inspected the produce being sold there.
The officials said that this was the first time that they had seized ethylene from shops in Udhagamandalam, stating that ethylene powder was being sold to merchants in small sachets, which could be kept inside a box of fruits and it could artificially ripen them.
They added that though ethylene was not very highly toxic to humans, exposure to high doses of the chemical could lead to headache, nausea and unconsciousness in some people.
More checks were to be conducted by the department in the coming weeks in the run up to the summer festival season.
