The fatal disease, apart from killing the human beings, has dealt a deadly blow to the industry worth several crores of rupees.

Rajasthan is perhaps the largest producer of mustard seeds and the oil in the country. The crop is confined to Alwar and Bharatpur regions of the state covering lakhs of acres. In fact from the quality standpoint too, Rajasthan mustard is rated high by the country's market. The exports are on the rise as the demand from outside is soaring in recent times.

Due to deaths and the government action against the traders of mustard oil, the entire trading in mustard has come to a standstill with most of the oil mills closing down.

In fact the market demand of mustard oil has fallen by a large degree since the reports of adulteration of the oil with Angemon oil hit theheadlines.As a result the edible oil prices have sharply risen in Rajasthan with the Postman brand groundnut oil selling at high rates. The same is true in the case of most other edible oils. As the offtake is very poor, large quantities of mustard seed and its oil have piled up in the mills and godowns. The losses incurred by the mill owners have become quite sizeable. According to DK Khunteta, general secretary of Rajasthan Edible Oil and Vanaspati Traders Association, the sales of mustard oil in the state had come to a halt. The plight of the wholesale dealers has become quite serious.

In the Alwar district of Rajasthan there are about 475 oil mills which produce mustard oil. At present these are laying off as there are no takers for mustard oil. Before the outbreak of the disease in Delhi, these mills had been doing a good job.

Says Laxmi Narain Goel, secretary of the Rajasthan Oil Industries Association: ``the farmers will not take up cultivation of mustard if the present situation continues'. Hecould see a major crisis developing in the whole of northern India.

Goel said in a statement that a strong lobby was at work to malign the mustard oil producers. The whole idea was to discourage the use of mustard oil by the people. In the rural areas the people generally used mustard oil for cooking. In fact the centre should order a probe to find out the role being played by the lobbyists so that the truth come out.

According to MD Kaurani, Medical and Health Secretary of Rajasthan, the samples taken from the traders and oil producers of mustard oil had not contained the fatal Angemon oil. If the latter's presence in the mustard oil was over 5 per cent those using it would die. Asked if any certification was required under the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act before the oil could be sold, Kaurani said that there was no such provision at present.

In Rajasthan not a single case of dropsy had yet been reported, he maintained. Kaurani said he had issued instructions to the district collectors and thechief medical officers to increase the tempo of sampling and carry out spot tests. In this connection he disclosed that some officials of the Directorate of Vegetable Oils in Delhi had taken out some samples of mustard oil from the Alwar district. Some samples of Vijay Solvex which produced the known brand of ``Scooter''oil had also been taken. No ban on the sale of loose oil had yet been put in Rajasthan, said Kaurani. The future course of action would depend on how things shaped. At the same time no arrests had been made in Rajasthan.