ICAR-National Dairy Research Institute, Karnal launched an innovative kit for the detection of maltodextrin, an adulterant of recent time, in milk. The paper strip based kit has been developed at in Dairy Chemistry Division of ICAR-NDRI and can detect 0.01% level of maltodextrin in milk. The kit has been developed by group of scientists - Dr. Rajan Sharma, Dr. Y.S. Rajput and Dr. Bimlesh Mann. The kit has been commercialized to two students of NDRI namely Mr. Manoj Kumar Maurya and Mr. Babbar Singh who have become entrepreneurs and is available in the market in the brand name of del-stripsTM. Presently the strips are being manufactured in the Technology Business Incubator (TBI) facility at ICAR-NDRI, Karnal. Maltodextrin is an adulteration of recent time and is a hydrolyzed products of starch which is difficult to detect by existing methods. Unscrupulous people are taking benefit of this and adding maltodextrin in milk and various milk products. The developed kit is capable of even detecting adulteration of milk products such as dahi, khoa etc with maltodextrin.
Dr. R.R.B Singh, Director, NDRI said that milk is one of the most precious gift of nature which contains almost all the nutrients required to support the life and can be consumed by individuals of all ages. He said that adulteration of food products including milk is a menace in India and NDRI is working proactively to develop tools to tackle this menace. In this direction, a series of paper strip based tests have been developed by NDRI which can rapidly detect adulteration of milk with neutralizers, added urea, glucose, hydrogen peroxide, sucrose and maltodextrin.
