VIJAYAWADA: Special Chief Secretary to government excise, Rajat Bhargava said on Monday that liquor sample tests did not find presence of any harmful substances like Scoparone, Volkenin and Pyrogallol.
He said MP Raghurama Krishnaraju has written to Prime Minister Modi to say that such harmful substances were found in the liquor samples sold in the retail outlets of APSBCL in the state. Standard manufacturing practices for potable liquor were not followed while producing the samples, he said.
Bhargava said the allegations were unsubstantiated and false. “The state government would file a criminal case against the MP for “defaming and causing loss to the AP government.”
He said that on receipt of the above report, APSBCL requested SGS labs to look into this. SGS has informed APSBCL that the samples were not tested as per the Standard IS 4449(Whiskey) and IS 4450(Brandy) as that was not requested by the individuals who submitted the samples for testing. SGS has not interpreted or ascertained that the substances like Scoparone, Volkenin and Pyrogallol found in the samples were harmful.
He said that individuals (Chaitanya and Pavan) have sent the unauthorised liquor samples, “and it could not be confirmed if the samples were bought in the state of Andhra Pradesh and more specifically whether they were from any outlet of APSBCL.”
He said, also, it was not clear whether the samples submitted for testing were in tampered or untampered state. “These unauthorized samples were sent to SGS labs for testing with malicious intent, without following the standard sampling and testing procedure.”
The Chemical Laboratory (Guntur) has stated that for the above-mentioned substances, there are no values, permissible limits are not mentioned, and they appear to be at trace level.”
“To improve the testing of alcohol in the state, APSBCL has increased the number of samples taken for testing and improved the methods of testing. So far, no incidence of harmful substances was found to be present. Currently, all the liquor manufactured in the distilleries in Andhra Pradesh had obtained their permission prior to 2019,” he added.
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