‘Unfortunate that government is dithering on the issue’
Former Member of Parliament M. Ramadass on Wednesday said the delay by the government in setting up Centrally legislated consumer protection mechanisms even after two years since the amended Consumer Protection Act took effect, was inexplicable.
In a statement, he said the Government of India had called upon all States and Union Territories, including Puducherry, to enact rather expeditiously similar legislation and create authorities envisaged under the Act in 2020 itself. The authorities to be created included the Consumer Protection Council, Central Protection Consumer Authority, National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission at the National level and State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission and District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission at the State/ Union Territory level.
It was unfortunate that the government was dithering on this issue and yet to set up the State level and the District Commission. “The hesitancy of the government is simply inexplicable, especially, when a very clear and straight forward central legislation is available. An effective and consumer friendly government should have accomplished the task within six months but this government is in deep slumber for about two years”, he said.
He said the absence of protection mechanisms had badly hit aggrieved consumers, especially in days of soaring prices with reduced real value of money that give rise to unethical practices in the guise of inflation. Creation of artificial scarcity of goods and services through hoarding and black marketing, manipulation of prices, misleading advertisement of products and services, shifting the burden of cost on the consumers and selling of adulterated, spurious and substandard goods were among the many ways that consumers were being short-changed.
‘Complaints ignored’
Though consumers seem to have lodged complaints about their grievances to the respective government department, these are not attended to since the government had not put the relevant commissions in place so far, he said.
Mr. Ramadass urged the government to immediately constitute the State and District Consumer Commissions to deal with the sufferings of helpless consumers.
