Change in character needed

Brick powder or red edible colour powder is mixed with red chilly powder. Milk is adulterated with water, milk powder; buffalo milk is mixed with cow8217;s milk a cheaper alternative; or milk without cream is mixed with fresh milk. Petrol is mixed with kerosene or with low-grade petrol with less lubricating quality; kerosene with low-grade spirit or thinner.

Adding of coloured water to medicines is common, so is mixing cold drinks with other cheaper versions. Similarly in the industrial sector, spurious chemicals are used in industrial processes. In the agricultural sector, cheap compounds are added to fertilisers making them less effective. Adulterated commodities, whether food stuffs, liquor, or medicines take many lives every year. The state health departments are caught unawares when such deaths occur. Then, they swing into action, banning certain commodities and booking certain people under the Food Adulteration Act 1954. But why should adulteration allowed to take place in the first instance? These things continue to happen, pointing to loopholes in the system of checks and balances that need to be plugged by concerned departments.

One ways to curtail adulteration is that commodities for sale must stamped and labelled, to show they conform to the standards prescribed by the department which has tested the product samples. Only those commodities clearing the test must be allowed into the market. Checks should also be conducted on commodities stored in go-downs. Again, there should be raids on shopkeepers so that they desist in adulteration for petty gains. On the other hand, a advertising blitzkrieg should be launched to make the public aware of the ways and means of adulteration; and the agencies which can be contacted in case of any doubt or to report cases of adulteration. The people can be educated through the media on which brands are genuine and which should be avoided. This type of awareness will help the ordinary citizen of our country and help save many a life.

Apart from the awareness, punishment and checks, efforts to reform people resorting to adulteration should be made. If any person is found resorting to adulteration in your locality, apart from the punishment which he will get under the law, he should be subjected to societal pressure and condemnation. An effort should be made to change his outlook. In fact, even he can get it back in the same coin from a fellow culprit, who adulterates some other commodity, say medicines, which his family might have to use. To really stop the practice of adulteration, we have to change the Indian character, of making a fast buck rather than earn money through hard work.

If every citizen of this country is morally upright, adulteration would not be possible. It is good thing to have keen, fine intellectual development in a nation, to produce orators, artists, successful businessmen; but it is an infinitely greater thing to have those solid qualities which we group under the name of character, the lift of generous enthusiasm towards what is right. These are the qualities which go to make up true national greatness.The writer is a postgraduate in personnel management.