Kathmandu, Jan. 6 : Twenty per cent of the foodstuffs available in the market have been found adulterated, according to the Central Food Research Laboratory.

The laboratory has said 20 per cent of the 4000 foodstuff collected from 36 districts including the capital and the bordering districts were found to be of low quality and adulterated.

According to the chief of the Central Food Research Laboratory Tika Bahadur Karki, the adulteration was found while conducting laboratory test  for 67   kinds of food items including cooking oil, vegetable ghee, milk, spices and sweets sold in the market.

Asked as to why only the 67 items were tested out of the thousands of food items found in the market, Mr. Karki said it is due to lack of manpower as we have only 18 food inspectors (one for one million people) and the lack of advanced quality testing equipment.

There are more than one thousand  cooking oil producing factories including  15-20  brands of oil which are most commonly used, it is difficult to test the oil as many  farmers sell oil carrying their product to the capital, he said.

Asked as to what action is being taken against the company for adulteration, Mr. Karki said the laboratory  has no authority  in the direct sense  to take action against them, adding that  the situation  has  further   worsened as the laboratory does not have a legal advisor.

When asked about the future plans for the building up of resources for   the research laboratory, he said  the ministry of health had so far been spending more than 30,000 u.s. dollars  received from the World Health Organisation (who) for  food safety every year.

Expressing the view that the research laboratory under the Ministry of Agriculture should be receiving the who grant assistance, Mr. Karki said that if His Majesty’s Government provided the who grant assistance to the research laboratory it would help in making improvements at the laboratory.