The shoppers should be alert about the weight of the items they purchase from the shops, malls and the like. Apart from this, they must make it a habit to take receipts of the items from the shops against the purchases they make. The customers getting cheated is now a common phenomenon in Dehradun with the mushrooming of malls and others which are slowly elbowing out the traditional neighbourhood retail shops.
The cheated buyers can register complaints in the department of weights and measures on phone number 7055200402. And once the complaints are registered the department officials would take cognizance of them and take action against the shopkeepers charged with irregularities, said MS Negi, deputy controller, legal metallurgy, Garhwal range, on Friday.
He said that the shopkeepers, caught providing less weight of the items purchased to the customers, are being slapped with a penalty of Rs 500. He further said that he has sent a proposal to the Central government to increase the penalty amount to make it more effective as a deterrent.
Statistics reveal a bleak scenario. Most of the people thus cheated don’t register complaints in spite of knowing that they have received less weight of the items they buy from the shops.
He appealed to the people to register a complaint at the department if they receive less weight of the items purchased. Receipts are a must for them to proceed, he stressed.
Negi further said that the department facing shortage of staff/inspectors is landing it in problem. Only one inspector has been deputed in Dehradun office, he said. “We brought inspectors from other districts of the range to conduct drives that we launch in the Dehradun from time to time to stop cheating,” he added.
He expressed hope that six more inspectors would be recruited soon by the government to help them tide over the acute staff crunch they are facing.
Negi further informed that the drives continuing in full swing, a team led by inspector Amit Kumar Singh had conducted raids at eight shops in the city on Thursday. “The team members have found shopkeepers selling items without weighing them properly. They are yet to procure the weighing equipment the department asked them to,” he said.
At Kamal Jewellers, Dehradun, measures used by the staff were not certified by the weight and measure department, he said, adding that a penalty of Rs 500 had been imposed on the owner of the shop. The same team had conducted raids at various shops located at Sahastradhara on Friday, he informed.
In view of increasing complaints regarding shopkeepers providing less weight of the items the customers purchase, three inspectors –each from Pauri, Roorkee (Haridwar) and Tehri- have been brought in Dehradun and they have been pressed into conducting raids. They have been directed to slap the errant shopkeepers with challans after verifying whether the shops are using measures as certified by the department.
Negi said that in the financial year 2015-16, the department officials had conducted raids at as many as 36,842 shops in the Garhwal division. “Irregularities were found in as many as 2745 shops and the department collected revenue to the tune of Rs 3.46 crore in the form of penalty.
While 38 challans were imposed on lPG agencies the figures were 128 on petrol pumps, 254 on PDS shops, 63 on semi-government agencies, 133 on flour mills, 626 on shops, 152 on vegetable vendors, 54 on milk sellers and 700 on other shopkeepers,” he said.
The department had fixed the target of Rs 2.90 crore for the year 2015-16, he further informed. In the year, 2014-15, Rs 3.31 crore had been collected from the offenders in the form of penalty, he added.