Carbide being used for mangoes ripening

Vijayawada: Vigilance and enforcement, and food safety department officials jointly conducted raids on the mango shops in Gudivada and Machilipatnam on Wednesday and destroyed mangoes worth Rs 40 lakh for using the carbide.

Though the government had banned the use of carbide for artificial ripening of mangoes, the traders are using the harmful carbide for ripening in some parts of Krishna district.

The raids were conducted under the supervision of vigilance and enforcement department superintendent of police Ravindra Babu. Vigilance DSP R Vijay Paul, assistant food controller N Poornachandra Rao and others participated in the raids in Gudivada and Machilipatnam.

The officials noticed that carbide packets were placed in the mango stocks for ripening in the godowns. They seized 10 tonnes of mangoes worth Rs 30 lakh in Gudivada and three tonnes of mangoes worth Rs 10 lakh in Machilipatnam.

DSP Vijay Paul said samples were collected from the shops and handed over to the Gudivada municipality for conducting lab tests. He said cases would be booked against the traders if it has proved that they had used carbide for ripening fruits.

He said the government had banned the use of carbide for ripening of mangoes because it is harmful to the health. Mangoes were seized from the shops run by M Appala Dasu alias Appanna, Dubba Ramakrishna, A Appa Rao, K Bhaskar, Peddi Ramana, Pidugu Vasu and Pidugu Sreenu in Gudivada.

The officials conducted raids on mango shops in Machilipatnam also. They destroyed mangoes worth Rs 10 lakh for using carbide for ripening. The traders are using carbide for quick ripening of mangoes.

If the traders don’t use either carbide or ethanol it will take two weeks for ripening after harvesting the crop. Most of the traders are in a hurry to dispose of the stocks as early as possible and using carbide or ethanol.