In a surprise raid, the officials of Department of Labour seized a total of 125 weighing articles, including electronic scales, non-standard scales and cast iron weights, from the shops in the onion market for the failure of shopkeepers to get them stamped at periodical intervals.
The Labour Department does the stamping once in a year for electronic scales and once in two years for non-standard scales to ensure that the machines are not tampered with.
“Besides, the machines lose their calibrations due to usage over a certain period,” said the Assistant Commissioner of Labour, S.P. Shanthi.
During the raid, led by Ms. Shanthi, over ten officials conducted surprise checks at the shops in the onion market on East Marret Street.
“We have been conducting raids periodically. But, this time we acted on specific complaints about underweighing of onions at the shops in onion market. Our office had received a couple of complaints,” she said.
The scales and weights have to be brought to the Labour office where the officials would check the efficiency of the scales and correctness of the weights. Such scales and weights are stamped so that people can check and satisfy themselves about their genuineness.
The officials found that many of the scales were not in proper condition. Some of the weights were tampered with. With such scales the customers could be cheated by underweighing of onions, Ms. Shanthi said.
Among the seized articles were 17 electronic scales, seven counter scales, 24 c-class balance and 75 cast iron weights.
For complaints
The officials said that Commissioner of Labour Amudha and Joint Commissioner P. Saravanan, have encouraged people to lodge complaints about any such illegal activities over the phone number 94453-98761. Besides, complaints could be sent to the Office of Inspector of Labour, TNHB Office Building, Ellis Nagar, Madurai – 16.
