Milk delivered to filmmaker's home with Jan 2010 stamped on packet

For Sinhagad Road resident Pritam Mukherjee, the delivery of milk to his home on Wednesday morning marked the beginning of a battle.

The milk was five monthsu00a0 old, the packet date showed, and Mukherjee, a filmmaker who is an alumnus of FTII, decided to bring the milk company to book.

Mukherjee says the company put his family's health at risk by providing stale milk.

Two half-litre packets of Giridhar Milk brand were delivered to Mukherjee's home by his milkman at 7.30 am. Mukherjee said he had been getting that brand of milk for a year at his residence.

"It was our lucky day, because I noticed the date of manufacture on the milk bag ufffd it was January 2010. It means the packet of milk was more than five months old," said Mukherjee.

He immediately called his milkman to enquire about the expired product. The milkman said he was puzzled because the company had supplied the packets that morning.

"I called up the helpline number of the company mentioned on the milk bag. Someone picked up and heard me out but he wasn't ready to believe that such a thing could have happened," said Mukherjee.

According to him, the customer care executive did not pay attention to his complaint even after he threatened to report the matter to the media and the Food and Drugs Administration (FDA).

FDA Joint Commissioner S T Patil said that they would collect the sample of the milk brand and conduct an inquiry into the incident.

"It is possible that the thing was the result of wrong date stamping," said FDA food inspector Kembhalkar. "It
is unlikely that the milk is six months old, but in any case we will go to the site and inspect."