Uttarakhand bans Maggi for 3 months

Uttarakhand on Thursday imposed a three- month ban on production, sale and storage of Maggi with samples of the popular food product failing laboratory tests.

A notification was issued after samples of Maggi noodles failed laboratory tests, Principal Secretary Health Om Prakash told PTI.

The ban has been prompted by the presence of monosodium glutamate (MSG) in the samples sent for laboratory tests to Rudrapur in Udhamsingh Nagar district, he said.

The decision to put the ban was taken late last night by the Food Security Department as two of 300-odd samples of the food product failed laboratory tests, he said.

"As the matter concerns public health we lost no time in imposing a ban on the popular snack which is on the menu of every household countrywide," he said.

However, no lead content was found in the samples which failed the test, the official said, adding out of the 300 samples sent to Rudrapur laboratory, test results of a majority of them are still awaited.

After test results of all the samples collected from different places across the state arrive they will be sent to Kolkata for the final laboratory tests, he said.

Big retailers like Big Bazar have already withdrawn Maggi packets from their outlets in the city, Prakash said, adding small retailers may take some more time to do so.