Close to five tonnes of artificially ripened mangoes kept for sale in about 30 shops in Netaji Market were destroyed by a team of officials from the Food Safety and Drug Administration Department in a swift raid on Monday morning.
The team determined that the traders had sprayed ethylene to ripen mangoes.
Ethylene is used to ripen mangoes under controlled conditions and mangoes ripened by direct spraying of the chemical are quite harmful, District Officer for Food Safety and Drug Administration Karunanidhi who led the raid said. Though the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University has specified simple methods to ripen fruits by placing ripened and unripe fruits together in airtight containers, and spreading of unripe fruits as layers over paddy husk or wheat straw for a week, traders use ethylene for quick ripening.
The mangoes had to be confiscated and destroyed as the traders had flouted the procedure, Mr. Karunanidhi said.
