Mumbai (PTI): Food adulteration will be a cognisable and non-bailable offence in Maharashtra after an amended Act, which gives sweeping powers to police, comes into force Tuesday.

The Prevention of Food Adulteration (Maharashtra Amendment) Act, 2006 authorises police officials of the rank of inspector and above to arrest the culprits without warrants.

The Act has been amended specifically to check milk adulteration which has assumed alarming proportion in Mumbai and elsewhere, Food and Drug Administration Minister Baba Siddiqui said.

"As the offence now becomes non-bailable, we will be able to reach to the kingpin of the milk adulteration rackets," the minister told reporters.

It would also help in police investigations, he added.

There is an organised racket in adulteration and that is why the state government amended the Act, the minister said.

The Act was passed in April 2006. Maharashtra is the first state to enforce such provisions to curb food adulteration, he said, adding two new laboratories of the Food and Drug Administration have been set up at Mumbai and Aurangabad.

The state legislature had proposed amendments so that the Act can be strengthened to tackle the growing menace of food adulteration. The amendments received Presidential assent late last year.