The Telangana Assembly witnessed uproarious scenes on Wednesday over the sale of ‘adulterated milk’ by Heritage Food (India) Ltd, the private sector dairy owned by Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, N. Chandrababu Naidu. TRS and TDP members tried to shout down each other forcing the Speaker, S. Madhusudhan Chary, to adjourn the House twice within a span of half an hour.
Medical and Health Minister T. Rajaiah said samples of Heritage toned milk taken at Punjagutta were found to contain detergent and hydro peroxide was detected in the loose milk at Chudi Bazar. This sparked off protests from the Telugu Desam members even as their TRS counterparts kept shouting ‘shame shame’.
IT Minister K.T. Rama Rao said it was unfortunate that the Telugu Desam legislators were behaving as directors of the Heritage company. It was a fact that the Kerala government had prohibited the sale of Heritage milk following detection of some contaminants. Earlier, Enugu Ravinder Reddy (TRS) cited reports in The Hindu newspaper about Heritage Foods.
Mr. Rama Rao’s remark that the TDP legislators were ‘nominated members’ of Andhra Pradesh in the Telangana Assembly like the Anglo-Indian nominee sparked loud protests from the Telugu Desam members. When order couldn’t be restored, the Speaker adjourned the House for ten minutes.
When it reassembled, despite TDP members’ slogan shouting, the Speaker asked the Health Minister to give his reply. Dr. Rajaiah admitted that that milk producers were administrating harmful injections to the cattle to get more milk. Enforcement staff of GHMC had collected 32 milk samples of various brands and of them, 11 failed the quality standards, Dr. Rajaiah said.
He said 1,328 vials of 100 ml Oxytocin injections without any labels were seized from two medical shops and four cattle feed vendors. Earlier, members cutting across party lines expressed concern at the supply of adulterated milk in Hyderabad. They demanded stringent action against the offenders since public health was at stake.
