SPURIOUS life saving oral saline is being produced and marketed, needless to say, posing a grave threat to public health. A mobile court has discovered a factory called ARA Enterprise packaging in a most unhygienic manner ORS which is regarded as the most effective and affordable antidote to diarrhoea and dehydration. So far we have seen only kitchen-based purveying of dangerous food, which itself was a big concern for public health; but now we are witnessing something that poses even a bigger health hazard -- factory-based adulteration of a vital public health product.

The unscrupulous businessmen are so manipulative that they have been faking the packaging; at times, even the brand names of reputed products, thereby shortchanging the unsuspecting consumers. But how could they be throwing dust in the eyes of the drug administration people, or the BSTI? And that's not all, some of the brands of oral saline are not even registered with the concerned authority. We are simply horrified by the level of infiltration of thugs into the consumer market.

All of this points to a total absence of monitoring of industrial and health products by the designated regulatory bodies. Had the concerned authorities been alert and dutiful, these fake factories would have been discovered much earlier, with the consumers keeping from all sorts of health risks and, of course, waste of money.

What should be done now? We are glad that the mobile court is continuing with its drive to catch adulterators of different denominations. But we now feel that simply fining the culprits and their humiliation through media reports are not going to put their ilk out of action. Much more stringent measures need to be taken against the criminals and the factories manufacturing spurious drugs should be closed down at once.

The illegal manufacture and sale of products hazardous to life cannot be tackled by occasional raids. We have to root out corruption on which such abominable businesses thrive.