Yesterday I wrote about the spiraling prices of vegetables and health hazards through large scale oxytocin injections for increasing the size and weight of common vegetables, though in Hindi.

I found today ‘Safal’ outlets displaying a hoarding that all the vegetables and fruits on counters are safe with no harmful chemicals used in growing. However, many don’t believe the proclamations. Who will be guarantying for the vegetables and fruits sold in weekly bazaars that are visited by most of the residents of Noida for shopping these items?

It just last week I bought two kilos of mangoes that were pretty hard on the skin, but when we cut it at home we found all of them just rotten inside and inedible. The vendors would have certainly known it but he still pushed it.

While the central minister talked of the large scale use of harmful injections yesterday in media, but never came out with any plan to stop it rather he passed the buck to the state governments.

At the Safal outlet today, we were discussing this menace. I saw a dealer in vegetables. I inquired him about the reason of the rising prices. And he jokingly said, “Sir, after all we are to add the cost of injections too.”

It makes one happy that news travel pretty fast these days. At the grocery shop I found again the topic getting discussed. One supplier of a branded breads and confectionery from Faridabad revealed, “Sir, the injections are in use for years now even in remote villages to increase the milk yield.” Do those people know that it could be harmful for the little children who take that milk? Has anyone bothered to find the effects of the injected chemicals on the health of the babies? It’s certainly a hazardous practice in use for a long time and as usual the government or even NGOs have not bothered.

A lot of these so-called grassroots innovations for increasing the milk yields from buffaloes or cows would have been started by some without any validation of the side effects. Who takes up the tasks of educating them about the ill-effects? Will now the growers take the advice seriously unless they get affected themselves or penalized?

What should a common consumer do against such menace that can kill him?