The Hindu : Bureaucracy cool to consumer fora

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Dec 24, 2002

Southern States

Southern States - Tamil Nadu

Bureaucracy cool to consumer fora

By G. Satyamurty

Coimbatore Dec. 23. Are consumer bodies becoming irrelevant? One is forced to come to this conclusion even as one more National Consumer Day passes by tomorrow.

With the bureaucracy treating them either with contempt or at the most condescendingly, the fora are all at sea.

Consumer activists here lament that non-conduct of meetings for expressing people's grievances ``itself has become a major grievance now.'' They allege that the officials are not interested in holding meetings with the consumer organisations or even convening a session of the statutory panel such as the District Committee of Consumer Organisations.

As per the letter of A.M. Swaminathan, secretary, Co-operation, Food and Consumer Protection Department (dt. Nov 10,1994), which was based on a December 28,1988 G.O., "all Secretaries to Governments/Heads of Departments/Government undertakings concerned with consumer affairs should organise regular meetings with the leading voluntary consumer organisations (VCOs) (not less than four a year) so as to enable these bodies to represent their grievances/suggestions and recommendations."

But the order is followed only in the breach, going by a number of complaints received by the Government.

Lakshmi Pranesh, (currently Chief Secretary), who later became Consumer Protection Secretary, in her letter dated December 10,2001, points out: The District Collectors were instructed to convene meetings every month with the VCOs and take follow-up action on the matters put forward by the organisations. As it was brought to the notice of the Government that such meetings were not conducted regularly, the instructions were reiterated again and again. Even now such complaints of non-conduct of meetings with the VCOs regularly are not wanting... I therefore request you to ensure that the meetings with the VCO s are convened regularly in future and a report thereon is sent to the Commissioner of Civil Supplies and Consumer Protection. The Government will be constrained to take a serious view of any violation of the instructions."

K. Kathirmathiyon of the Consumer Cause, C.M. Jeyaraam of the Citizens' Voice Club and Mahalaxmi Subramanian of the Kasturibai Ladies Association here alleged that the meetings of the district committee of the VCOs had not been held properly in the past few years. Last year, a meeting of the District Committee was held on October 9.This year, it was held under the chairmanship of the District Revenue Officer on July 31. The next meeting, scheduled for November 19, was postponed twice and was yet to be held.

These meetings (if at all held), which hardly evoked proper response from officials, turned out to be a mere "farce." All that most of the Departments would say was that the officials concerned had been "advised" to look into the issue. "That is the end of the issue, because there has been seldom any follow-up," lament the activists. Even minutes were not properly prepared, they alleged.

Though MLAs and MPs were members of the committee, ``they are never invited."

The Coimbatore Collector ordered that the local bodies conduct separate meetings, as lack of basic amenities was the major grievance. "But no local body ever bothered to do so though such meetings are regularly conducted by the TNEB."

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