CHENNAI: In yet another case of counterfeit Chinese products making their way into India, Chennai Seaport Customs has seized a consignment of spurious baby care products and herbal shampoo valued at Rs 20 lakh.
The consignment was shipped from China to Chennai via Hong Kong, said customs commissioner C Rajan on Friday. The seized fake products include Johnson and Johnson's baby shampoo and baby milk bath, Procter and Gamble's Clairol herbal shampoo and Malaysia-based Gervas' herbal conditioning shampoo named Gervenne, which has no market exposure in India. All the products were packed in look-alike containers, but both Johnson and P&G have confirmed that they are fake products, Rajan said.
The docks intelligence unit of Chennai Customs grew suspicious about the consignment because as per the manifest filed by the shipping agent, the container had come from China via Hong Kong, but the bill of entry submitted by the Chennai-based importer, Pratheebha Exports, claimed the country of origin of the products as Thailand and the port of loading as Singapore. "After reconfirming the port of origin as China with the help of our container-tracking facility, I ordered seizure of the consignment for a thorough investigation. When we found that none of the products was manufactured in Thailand going by the labels on the products they were manufactured in Malaysia, Australia and Greece - we sent the samples to Johnson and Johnson and P&G to confirm their genuineness," said Rajan.
K R Wadia, hub brand protection leader of P&G, in his letter sent to the Customs officials, said the "sample of Clairol Herbal Essences Shampoo provided by your office is not a genuine product."
Similarly, Anil Upadhyay, VP, legal and company secretary of Johnson and Johnson, wrote, "We concluded that the samples are counterfeit products."
"Based on these findings, a case has been filed against the importer under section 11 of Customs Act and sections 9 and 10 of Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940. We have issued summons to the importer. Similar spurious products could have already entered the market. Only health department officials can do something about it," Rajan noted.
Dr. Swati Padankatti, a city-based paediatrician, said, "Use of spurious baby products like shampoo and milk bath, depending on their ingredients, can cause rashes, irritation of eyes or even conjunctivitis."
Chennai, of late, has been witnessing a series of seizures of counterfeit Chinese products. In June, fake spark plugs of Bosch with "Made in India" tags, but originally manufactured in China, landed at the port here. A month later, Rs 6-crore worth counterfeit cosmetics and mobile phone batteries of popular brands like Garnier and Nokia were seized. In September, Rs 5.5-crore worth substandard Chinese toys were seized for violation of import rules and on October 14, Rs 1.5-crore worth adulterated and misbranded food products sourced from China, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam were confiscated.
Source : TOI