The Government will soon bring a law to protect consumers from getting charged more than the Maximum Retail Price (MRP) for items including bottled water, Minister for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Ramvilas Paswan informed the Rajya Sabha on Friday.
The Minister, however, lamented that the State Governments were yet to take action against defaulters despite repeated reminders by the Central Government adding it had received 5,700 complaints regarding overcharging of bottled water and other items. “We have written to them on four instances but none of the States have responded,”he said.
Fielding questions on the issue, Paswan said the Government plans to bring a new Consumer Protection legislation shortly adding it will be sent to the Cabinet and then brought to Parliament. Earlier, a Draft Bill was referred to a Parliamentary Standing Committee which recommended a lot of changes. When over 80 amendments were suggested in the draft to the law Ministry, the Government decided to formulate a new Bill instead, he said.
Noting that the Govern-
ment has received 5,698 complaints, the Minister said in such cases the action is taken by the State Governments. Maintaining that charging above the MRP was “cheating,” Paswan said he had recently held a meeting on the issue and asked officials to look into it.
The Minister, however, mentioned that there was a complaint against the Board of Control for Cricket in India which took prompt action and barred such practice.
Members raised concern over such “cheating” of consumers as the prices of items like bottled water vary from place to place especially in malls, airports and five-star hotels. Congress member Rajeev Shukla said that a bottled water worth Rs 10 was sold for Rs 50 in airlines and the Civil Aviation Ministry comes under the Centre.