Raghav Chadha raises food adulteration issue in Parliament, suggests corrective measures to government | Video
AAP MP Raghav Chadha raised the issue of food adulteration in the Rajya Sabha, urging the government to take stringent corrective measures to curb the menace and ensure food safety for consumers.
AAP MP Raghav Chadha on Wednesday raised serious concerns over rampant food adulteration in the country during a discussion in the Rajya Sabha, warning that the menace has turned into a major public health crisis and calling for urgent corrective measures by the government.
Speaking in the Upper House, Chadha said that "poison is being openly sold in markets" under the guise of purity, with fake labels and misleading health claims. "The issue is dangerous food adulteration. Poison is being openly sold in the market with fake labels claiming purity," he said, adding that everyday food items such as milk, spices, edible oils, packaged foods, and beverages are being sold with unsafe additives, harmful chemicals, and excessive amounts of sugar, salt, and saturated fats along with misleading nutritional claims that they are good for health and energy-boosting.
Here's the full speech of Raghav Chadha in Rajya Sabha | Watch
Highlighting specific examples, the AAP leader claimed that milk is being adulterated with urea and detergents, vegetables are injected with oxytocin, paneer contains starch and caustic soda, ice cream has detergent powder, fruit juices are laced with synthetic flavours and artificial colours, and spices are mixed with brick powder and sawdust. "Tea contains synthetic colors, chicken and poultry items contain anabolic steroids, and honey contains sugar syrup and yellow dye," he said.
The AAP MP further alleged that edible oils are adulterated with machine oil, tea with synthetic colours, poultry products with anabolic steroids, and honey with sugar syrup and dyes. Even sweets, he said, are often made with vanaspati instead of pure ghee.
"Imagine a mother giving her child a glass of milk, thinking it contains calcium and protein and that it will make her child healthy. She has no idea that she is feeding her child a dangerous mixture of urea and detergent," he added.
71% of milk samples tested contained urea
Chadha cited research findings to underline the scale of the problem, claiming that 71 per cent of milk samples tested contained urea and 64 per cent had neutralisers such as sodium bicarbonate. "The country doesn't even produce as much milk as is being sold in this country," he added.
He also pointed out that between 2014-15 and 2025-26, adulteration was detected in 25 per cent of all food samples tested, meaning one in every four samples was found to be adulterated.
"Let's talk about medicines... and vegetables. Vegetables, which we buy thinking they are a storehouse of health, are being injected with oxytocin to make them look fresh and green and to accelerate their growth. Oxytocin is a harmful chemical that causes diseases like dizziness, headaches, heart failure, infertility, and cancer. Between the years 2014-15 and 2025-26, in all the samples that were tested, adulteration was found in 25 percent of them. That means one in every four samples was adulterated. Who knows how many people fell ill, how many went to the hospital, and how many lost their lives?"
Calling food adulteration a "silent health emergency," Chadha said the issue is especially dangerous for children, pregnant women, and the elderly. He also expressed concern that products manufactured in India but banned in countries such as the US, UK, and parts of Europe due to cancer-causing pesticides continue to be sold domestically.
"Even more shocking is that products manufactured in India, but banned internationally, are still being sold here. For example, the products of two of the country's largest spice companies were banned in the US, UK, and, in fact, throughout Europe, because they contained cancer-causing pesticides. Those same spices are still being sold and bought in India in large quantities. We are forced to consume these products," he said.
Raghav Chadha suggests corrective measures to govt
Urging the government to act decisively, the AAP MP suggested strengthening the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) by providing adequate manpower and modern laboratory testing facilities. He also called for stricter penalties and fines to deter offenders and proposed a public recall mechanism under which adulterated products should be named, shamed and immediately withdrawn from the market.
"The situation has reached a point where food items unfit even for pets in other countries are being sold freely in India," Chadha said, pressing for urgent reforms to protect consumer health and restore trust in food safety.