Surat: Ahead of the Chandi Padva festival, the Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC) has stepped up food safety checks, launching a drive against mava sellers and collecting samples of mava and ghari from shops across the city to ensure quality during the festive season.Eating ghari on Chandi Padva is a long-standing tradition in Surat, with demand for the popular sweet surging in the days leading up to the festival. Besides sweet shops and snack outlets, several community groups prepare ghari in large quantities for distribution among their members. Many residents also make the delicacy at home, purchasing mava from local shops and adding to the seasonal demand.As part of its annual food quality inspection drive, SMC’s food safety teams began collecting mava samples on Thursday. A total of 15 samples were collected from 15 shops and sent to the civic body’s public health laboratory for testing.On Friday, the drive focused on ready-made ghari sold at sweet shops across the city. Officials collected 20 samples from 10 shops, taking two different varieties of ghari from each outlet to ensure broader testing coverage.The sampling drive covered several prominent and popular sweet outlets in the city, including Sumul Dairy, officials said.“The results of the tests will be declared in two days’ time. The mava and ghari samples will be tested to determine whether the products are fresh and contain the required milk solids as per prescribed standards,” a food safety officer said.The drive aims to safeguard public health and ensure that sweets consumed during the festive period meet prescribed food safety and quality standards.Mava, a concentrated milk product, is the key ingredient used in preparing ghari, a traditional sweet deeply rooted in Surat’s cultural identity and an integral part of its Chandi Padva celebrations.
