The legal Metrology wing of Food and Civil Supplies Department, Punjab on Saturday said it has conducted statewide raids continuously for past 2 days at the eating joints on Railway Stations, Bus Stands and the roadside Dhabas.
The teams of legal Metrology Inspectors and their staff detected gross irregularities at several places like obliteration of MRP, overpricing and non standard weights and measures.
As many as 149 inspections were conducted and 30 cases were booked under various provisions of legal Metrology Act and Rules including 22 for overpricing, 2 for non declaration of mandatory details on packaged products like the net contents, MRP, date of manufacture, expiry date etc and 6 cases for nonverification ie non stamping of weights used to measure quantity of goods.
Rs. 2,47000 is expected to be collected as the compounding fee from the challans done during the raids.
Bharat Bhushan Ashu, Food and Civil Supplies Minister Punjab, said the raids were prompted by the rush of complaints regarding overcharging of water bottles and other packaged eatables at the bus stands and railway stations.
He added that "the frequency of the surprise inspections would be increased in order to protect the common man from being cheated and defrauded. "
He appealed to the public to inform or lodge complaint for any wrong doing by the seller of products like overcharging, fraudulent use of weights and measures and non-standard packaging.