20 items placed on mandatory list: sale, manufacture of sub-standard items prohibited

The federal government has decided to come down heavily on the sale and manufacture of spurious and sub-standard items of daily use which pose serious threat to human health.
According to a notification issued on October 11, the federal government in consultation with the Pakistan Standards and Quality Control Authority (PSQCA), has prohibited from January 1, 2009, the manufacturing, keeping in stock and the sale of 20 items which do not conform to the Pakistan standard.
Thus for the first time in the 61 year history 20 items have been placed on mandatory list in one stroke. These items include sugar, white and refined, black tea and all types of milk now being sold in the market.
The federal government has further directed that every such article, which conforms to the Pakistan standard, shall be marked with the standard mark of the Authority. These items are in addition to 58 items, which are already on the mandatory list. The items placed on the list now total 78.
These include milk powder (whole and skim). Condensed milk, tea black, fruit squash, marmalade, concentrated fruit juice, food for infants and children, chilly powder, orange juice, apple juice, curry powder, turmeric (ground & powdered), refined sugar and white sugar, butter, honey, jams (fruit preserve) and jellies, flavoured milk, synthetic vinegar, mayonnaise, and pickles.
The government has taken the step after threadbare discussions and investigations, which showed that these items did not meet the required standards and contained impurities. Samples of 18 sugar mills collected from the market and tested by PSQCA were found unsafe for human consumption.
Of these sugar mills 10 are located in Sindh and eight in Punjab. Of the 76 sugar mills in operation in Pakistan, 38 are located in Punjab, 32 in Sindh and six in NWFP. From the samples tested in the laboratories by PSQCA, 25% of the sugar available in the market is sub-standard and poses serious health problems to consumers.
Needless to mention that Pakistan Sugar Mills Association had sometime back officially conveyed to the Authority its unwillingness to allow testing by PSQCA the sugar produced by the mills.
It was not understandable that while the sugar mills were not willing to subject their products to PSQCA conformity, they had kicked up a big issue when sugar was imported last year by Pakistan to tie over the sugar crisis, and had charged that the imported commodity was sub-standard and did not conform to Pakistan standard.
The issue was raised to protect their monopoly and make huge profits on products, which were regarded as injurious to public health by PSQCA. They had been demanding high import duty on sugar and resisting all PSQCA moves to bring the product under the standard discipline.
Conscious of the great dangers, which the sub-standard products pose to consumers, the government has finally put its foot down and placed sugar and other items on the mandatory list to protect the exploitation of masses at the hands of influential people. PSQCA tests had proved conclusively that the substance found in the sugar were in non-conformity of the standards. Sulphur dioxide, sulphated ash and moisture found in the sugar could affect asthma patients, according to medical findings.