On Thursday, the Enforcement Directorate arrested Kailash Chand Mangla, promoter of Sukriti Foods. The agency alleges his ghee was made from refined palm oil, palm kernel oil, palmolein and chemicals such as MG-90, monoglycerides, Myvacet Soft 400 and acetic acid ester, then passed off to Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) as Agmark Special Grade cow ghee.
The claim that fell out of the story
In September 2024, Andhra Pradesh’s leaders said lab reports showed animal fat, including beef tallow and fish oil, in the laddu ghee. The CBI-led SIT’s chargesheet later described the adulteration as mainly palm oil and/or palm stearin mixed with palm kernel oil, and said lab testing did not establish animal fat in the samples yet. The picture is not perfectly clean, though. The NDDB analysis reportedly found animal fat “very less”, and early rapid tests had flagged markers that pointed the wrong way. The loudest allegation was wrong in its specifics. The quieter one was worse.
A dairy with no milk
The SIT found that Bhole Baba Organic Dairy bought no milk and processed no butter, yet supplied about 68 lakh kg of “ghee” worth roughly ₹250 crore between 2019 and 2024. After it was blacklisted in 2022, the same product allegedly kept flowing through Vyshnavi Dairy and AR Dairy. AR Dairy allegedly reported 2.52 lakh litres of daily milk procurement to meet the tender rule when its actual average was 1.45 lakh.
A test built to be passed
Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) leaned heavily on Reichert-Meissl values to verify purity. The chargesheet says acetic acid esters were added to spike that number, with beta carotene for colour and flavouring for aroma. The fraud was engineered around the lab test. When four tankers were rejected in July 2024, they were allegedly diverted to a stone-crushing unit near Vyshnavi Dairy, reworked, relabelled and supplied again in August.
The price tag screamed
In May 2024, Agmark Special Grade cow ghee sold for ₹570 to ₹700 a kilo, yet AR Dairy under quoted ₹319.80, and the SIT says a TTD general manager knew this was unviable. By my rough arithmetic, a kilo of real ghee needs twenty-odd litres of milk, which costs more than ₹320 even at farm-gate rates. There was an earlier warning too. Karnataka’s KMF said in 2022 that it would not bid at the rates TTD’s e-tender rewarded, because its price was fixed. The honest supplier walked out and the supplier with adulteration quality one won.
Nobody’s hands are clean
This is the part both camps avoid. The SIT dates the first adulterated supply to February 2019, under the TDP government. The February 2020 TTD board resolution, under the YSRCP, then relaxed the milk-procurement and turnover rules, which the SIT says opened the door to dairies with no milk. A June 2022 CFTRI report confirmed vegetable oil in one supplier’s ghee, but officials allegedly suppressed it. The chargesheet also lists hawala transfers of ₹19.86 crore, gold coins, phones and ₹50 lakh in cash to a chairman’s aide. The YSRCP points out that consignments were rejected at least 18 times between 2019 and 2024. That shows the checks caught some loads, but the same cartel kept returning under new names.
The money figures also disagree. The SIT counts 59.71 lakh kg and ₹234.51 crore, the ED says ₹230 crore, and earlier reports cite 68 lakh kg and ₹250 crore. Expect the court to settle it.