Mumbai: Maharashtra Government will initiate a legislation to make life imprisonment as the maximum punishment for food adulteration, Minister for Food and Drug Administration Girish Bapat said on Tuesday.
He was responding to a 'Point of Information' on cases of food adulteration and spurious chemical products having increased drastically across Maharashtra in the last three years according to data released by the Union Health and Family Welfare Ministry.
The issue was raised by Congress member Sanjay Dutt in the Legislative Council.
The government will initiate a legislation to make life imprisonment the maximum punishment for adulteration cases, Mr Bapat said.
He added that the government was working to increase the number of world class laboratories and mobile units in the state to curb adulteration.
Speaking on the issue earlier, Dutt pointed out that a Patanjali product, which was being distributed in the market, had its manufacturing date marked as April 2018, despite it still being March.
Responding to him, Bapat said action would be be taken as per law, adding that no one was above law.
