​Bitter milk: On the Rajamahendravaram milk adulteration case

Incidents involving mass poisoning of consumers in Rajamahendravaram in Andhra Pradesh due to milk contaminated with ethylene glycol are causing regulatory alarm. As of March 8, the death toll was 11 and about 20 people, including babies, were hospitalized. The police invoked sections 103 (punishment for murder) and 105 (premeditated murder not amounting to murder) of the BNS. The vendor allegedly continued to supply the milk despite complaints that it tasted bitter and was warned that coolant leaks could be toxic; It therefore seems reasonable for the State to treat gross negligence in food safety as a serious offence. However, there may also be adverse effects. Milk is a staple food for households in India, and contamination by an industrial compound already notorious for its lethality in India has the potential to trigger a crisis of confidence in the supply of local, unbranded milk. Children and the elderly are most affected by ethylene glycol poisoning due to their higher metabolic susceptibility and lower renal reserves, respectively. This may push people to buy pasteurized milk from regulated cooperatives like Amul or Vijaya, which is also desirable, but much of the milk is distributed through small vendors in India as well. As the state brings criminal charges, including ‘murder’, against offenders, marginal actors may leave the market or slide further into informality, which paradoxically can weaken surveillance.

Although the State aims to exert a strong influence on the seller’s business by criminalizing his alleged conduct, the importance of regulations cannot be ignored. Food safety compliance is as much about punishing bad actors as it is about reducing the cost of doing the right thing. In the informal supply chain, cold chain monitoring and hygiene controls are almost completely absent, leaving room for contamination. Subsidized testing kits and shared cooling facilities could thus reduce the risk on small dairies. Regulators may also consider safe harbor provisions that would ease penalties for dairy operators who report contamination at their facilities; This could also encourage early disclosure and give authorities time to save lives. But this also makes consistent application important. The fact that a dairy farm could operate without a safety license for 11 years raises serious questions about the oversight of the local government and FSSAI: local authorities failed to conduct periodic site inspections and FSSAI did not implement standardized safety protocols. The risk of detection becomes negligible, and even the most serious criminal charges cannot amount to meaningful preventive measures. An effective system must recognize that reliable detection of violations and the imposition of timely sanctions is a better deterrent than harsh penalties that do not aid enforcement and rarely result in conviction.