The Minister of State for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, Shri C.R. Chaudhary, the Secretary, Department of Food and Public Distribution, Ms. Preeti Sudan, the Secretary, Department of Consumer Affairs, Shri Jagdish Prasad Meena and the Director General (M&C), PIB, Ms. Ira Joshi are also seen.
Janjivan Bureau / New Delhi : Union consumer affairs and public distribution minister Ramvilas Paswan disclosed that the linkage of Aadhaar card with ration card 2.33 crore ration cards over 9 crore beneficiaries have been found to be duplicate or bogus. So, 9 crore genuine beneficiaries have been added. Paswan talking to media person on the achievents of three years of his ministry today he said to protect consumers, the government is making provisions in the new Consumer Protection Bill which will have (provisions for) a consumer protection authority, strict action against misleading advertisements and (will) strengthen the consumer court infrastructure.
We have increased the national consumer helpline to 60 lines from 14. Also, in five places, zonal helplines have been started apart from providing web chat and having a consumer app. Consumers had been neglected under the United Progressive Alliance government
“We have gone 99.99 per cent cashless, whether it is procurement or transportation. We are also going cashless at points of sale and have already done it in 50,048 shops. Direct transfer of cash subsidy is one of the options discussed at various forums for checking diversion of foodgrain” said Paswan.
“We are maintaining a buffer of 20 lakh tonnes of pulses which has ensured that prices, which were touching Rs 200 a kg, are now stable” Ramvilas said.
He said now prices have fallen and we are buying it at the minimum support price. Sugarcane farmers have also benefited from sustained government efforts to facilitate payment of arrears.
When we came in, sugarcane arrears were close to Rs 33,000 crore. Now, 99.9% have been paid and only 3-4 mills in Uttar Pradesh have to pay up to farmers.
In order to address the grievances pertaining to misleading advertisements, in March 2015 a portal “Grievances Against Misleading Advertisement (GAMA) was launched. Consumers can register complaints against false/misleading advertisements on this portal.
The GAMA portal is operated by the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) under an MoU signed between ASCI and the Department for processing these complaints and advising self-regulation. Till date, a total of 3220 complaints have been registered on the GAMA Portal. Of these, 1683 complaints have been resolved and 750 complaints rejected. Remaining complaints have been escalated to the concerned line Ministry.
An Online Consumer Mediation Centre (OCMC) for e-commerce complaints was launched in December, 2016 and is in the process of being operationalized. A mobile app named “Smart Consumer” has also been launched in December, 2016. This app helps the consumer to scan the bar code printed on any packaged commodity and thereby know the details of the product, company etc. and also to register a complaint.
The Department has tied up with a Social Media Network “Local Circles” to provide an electronic platform for consumers to discuss consumer related issues to generate awareness, get feedback and enable policy interventions where required. A microsite was launched in December, 2016 in collaboration with “Google India” to educate consumers on internet and digital safety. FAQs on Internet Safety, Safe Financial Transactions and e-commerce are available in the microsite.
With the intention of facilitating `Ease of doing business’, guidelines for direct selling were issued after detailed deliberations by an Inter-Ministerial Committee. The guidelines are in the form of an Advisory to State Governments and provide transparency, ease to consumers and establishing a grievance redressal mechanism for consumers.
A new Bureau of Indian standards (BIS) Act, 2016 was notified on 22nd March, 2016, establishing the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) as the National Standards Body of India. The Act contains provisions for including goods, services and systems, besides articles and processes for the purpose of standardization. It has enabling provisions for the Government to bring under compulsory certification regime any article, process or service which it considers necessary from point of view of health, safety, environment, prevention of deceptive practices, security etc. Enabling provisions have also been made for making hallmarking of the precious metal articles mandatory. The new Act also allows multiple type of simplified conformity assessment schemes including Self Declaration of Conformity (SDOC) against any standard which will give simplified options to manufacturers to adhere to the standards and get certificate of conformity. It enables the Central Government to appoint any authority, in addition to the BIS, to verify the conformity of products and services to a standard and issue certificate of conformity. Further, there is provision for repair or recall, including product liability of the products bearing Standard Mark but not conforming to the relevant Indian Standard.
For ease of doing business, the Legal Metrology (Packaged Commodities) Rules, were amended to give relaxation to affix a label on imported packages. An exemption was made for any thread which is sold in coil to handloom weavers in the interest of small weavers. To safeguard the interest of readymade garment industry, an advisory was issued that loose garments are not covered under the Legal Metrology (Packaged Commodities) Rules.
In order to safeguard the interest of the consumers, harmonization of the provisions of the Legal Metrology (Packaged Commodities) Rules and Essential Commodities Act was done enabling the Government to fix the Retail Sale Price for Essential Commodities so that such essential commodities are sold at the fixed retail price and quantity in packaged form.
