Maharashtra bans Maggi

  Mumbai, June 6
The Maharashtra government late on Friday banned Nestle's Maggi noodles in the state.

Food and Civil Suplies Minister Girish Bapat announced the ban after reports of six Maggi samples were received from a Pune testing lab.

According to these reports, the lead content in the samples was found to be far in excess of 2.5 parts per million (ppm).

The lab report found the lead content to be 4.66 ppm, 2.59 ppm and 2.55 ppm.

The minister has directed shopkeepers to immediately return unsold stocks of Maggi noodles and barred them from sales with liability of penal action.

The order comes hours after the FDA commissioner announced that Maggi noodles were found safe with nine samples testing negative.
Mumbai, June 5
In a relief of sorts for beleaguered multinational Nestle, its popular 2-minute noodle brand of Maggi passed laboratory tests in Maharashtra, a top official said here on Friday.

Nine out of 15 samples tested in Food and Drug Administration (FDA) laboratories so far have shown the lead content to be between 0.1-1.4 Parts Per Million (PPM), against the maximum limit of 2.5 PPM, said FDA Commissioner Harshdeep Kamble.

"The lead content we found in these samples are within permissible limits. The results of another six samples are expected by Saturday," Kamble added.

The samples which tested positive were picked up from Mumbai and Thane (4 each) and one from Sangli.

The test reports of samples from Pune, Nagpur, Kolhapur and Aurangabad are still awaited.

On Thursday, retailers in Mumbai had decided to stop stocking and selling Maggi noodles until the test reports confirmed it to be safe for consumption.

Earlier in the day on Friday, Nestle announced withdrawal of the product from the Indian market after several states banned Maggi in the past few days.