According to him, the proposed amendments, to be brought in Parliament in the monsoon session, would make consumer redressal inexpensive and quick, will provide recall of goods & services, if found unsafe or hazardous, and compensation to consumers. Paswan said that the government would treat the adulteration in food products and deficiency in consumer services as corruption.
Referring to the recent case of a fast food product investigation, the minister said that government was exploring all possible options to check reoccurrence of such incidents and ensure exemplary action to safeguard interests of consumers.
Paswan stated that food inflation remained moderate over the last year due to various measures taken by the government. Increase in prices of pulses, mainly because of demand and supply gap, has been taken by the government seriously. “We are considering all possible measures to ensure availability of pulses at reasonable prices including its import,” he asserted.
Seeking active market intervention by states to keep prices of essential commodities under check, particularly pulses and edible oil, Paswan said that his ministry had written to state governments to make available these commodities through civil supplies corporations/ cooperative societies outlets, especially to economically weaker sections, at reasonable prices. States have also been requested to take strict action against hoarding of these items.The Centre has convened a meeting of the states at the end of this month to discuss an action plan in this regard.
Highlighting proposed plans of the government for consumer welfare, Paswan said that redressal of consumer grievances would now be made consumer-friendly, enabling e-filing of cases and not requiring personal appearance till the stage of admission.
A “Central Consumer Protection Authority” has been proposed to investigate unfair trade practices and check misleading advertisements, initiate class action and order recall or replacement of defective products. Provision is being made for product liability to enable consumers to sue for damage caused by defective products/ deficient services. A dedicated portal www.gama.gov, to enable consumers to register their grievances against misleading advertisements (GAMA), has already been launched.
Six key sectors viz. food and agriculture, heath, education, real estate, transport and financial services have been included for this purpose. The complaints lodged on the portal are taken up with the relevant authorities or the sector regulators and the consumer is informed after the action is taken. In another initiative, to provide a host of consumer services under one roof, Grahak Suvidha Kendras are being set up at six locations including Patna.
Paswan said that food grain management had recorded significant improvement over the last year. Additional storage capacity of more than 43,480 lakh MTs has been created in remote areas, especially in the northeast, to keep at least three months of food grain allocation in advance. Innovative experiments like shipping of rice from Andhra to Tripura through Bangladesh waterways and Andhra to Kerala through sea route have been made. Twenty lakh tonne modern storage is being created in the shape of “silos,” damage/ leakage of FCI stocks has been brought down very significantly i.e. 0 .004 per cent.
Highlighting the farmer-centric approach in the initiatives of his ministry, Paswan stated, “Interests of farmers and consumers are high on the agenda of the government. In order to protect farmers interests affected with unseasonal rains, the government not only relaxed quality norms for wheat procurement but also decided to bear value cut, for shriveled and broken grains, so that farmers get full minimum support price for their produce.”
As a result, during the current Rabi marketing season government agencies have procured five lakh tonne more wheat than the last season. He said that FCI had been asked to work out a plan for procurement of pulses and oilseeds from farmers on MSP and adopt an aggressive paddy procurement plan in the regions where market prices generally ruled below the MSP and distress sale was reported, especially in the states of Andhra, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.
Paswan stated that to ensure implementation of National Food Security Act (NFSA) more efficiently, the Centre had decided to bear 50% expenditure of food grains handling and of dealers’ margin money. The Centre has finalised rules for payment of food security allowance to the beneficiaries of NFSA in case food grains are not made available to them.
