ludhiana with diwali just a few days away the risk of adulteration of food items has increased manifold the health department is faced with the challenge of preventing the sale of adulterated food items in the markets which are extremely busy at this time while health experts are advising people to check for the quality of food items particularly sweets bought in the festival season the administration is also taking steps to safeguard public health district health officer dho dr gurpreet singh said that in view of high consumption of food items like sweets milk and milk products and high chances of adulteration of such foods samples are being taken from various places across the district according to dr gurpreet singh there are six zones in the district and each zone has a food safety officer he added that since they have one vehicle for sampling one team goes to collect samples every day health officials said that while they take samples of food items like ghee milk milk products and dry fruits etc ahead of diwali they are focussing on sweets besides checking the raw material used in preparation of sweets officials also checked whether sweet makers were using permitted edible colours or other colours which could be toxic the dho said that their target was to collect 180 food samples in a month and till october 16 they had collected 78 samples he also asked people to report shops selling food items of questionable quality for this he said people could send mails at clerkfoodludhianagmailcom