Guntur: Vigilance officials carried out raids to seize spurious chilli powder stocks on Wednesday and Thursday. Illegal manufacture of spurious chilli powder, known as China Karam locally, using red oxide is damaging the reputation of Guntur chillies.
As many as 2,059 bags of chilli powder from Sambhavi cold storage, 3,500 bags from Lakshmi Vallabha cold storage, 2,450 bags from Sri Ramachandra deep cold storage and chillies/powder stocks worth Rs 15 crore were seized on Thursday.
Earlier on November 3, the Vigilance department had seized spurious chilli powder worth Rs 2.50 crore during a raid and registered cases against Bhuvaneswari traders, Lakshmiganapthi traders, Uday cold storage and others.
Following this, agriculture minister P. Pulla Rao, along with Telugu Desam leader and Guntur chilli yard chairman M. Subba Rao held a meeting with chilli powder manufacturers and directed them to stop making China Karam and had given them 10 days to clear the stocks.
Mr Subba Rao said spurious chilli powder would affect the business at Asia’s biggest chilli yard in Guntur, so, the government was taking stern action against violators.
The chilli yard chairman said taht criminal cases would be registered against the violators under the PD Act. He reminded that orders were issued to cold storages not to store spurious chilli powder.
