Milk being an important source of nutrition, its quality hygiene is the prime factor from communal view point. The present study was undertaken to estimate the incidence of opportunistic pathogens in cow milk from various dairies in Meerut city. 10 milk samples were collected from different dairies & were inoculated on the relevant bacteriological media. The quality of milk was assessed by viable bacterial count by Standard Plate Count (SPC) method, Mastitis test, and Methylene Blue Dye Reduction (MBRT) test. The SPC shows that large no. of microorganisms was present in the milk samples. The MBRT test performed for cow milk samples shows that out of ten samples, 3 samples were of poor quality & 7 were of fair quality. Mastitis test was performed which showed that 3 samples were infected. The bacterial identification was carried on differential media which shows the presence of different bacterial strains including E. coli, E. aerogenes, S. aureus, M. luteus P. aeruginosa. Further these were confirmed by various biochemical tests. The presence of these pathogens shows that the hygiene practices are poor & hence adequate sanitary measures should be taken at stage of from production to consumption.
