In a much needed relief for consumers of Jharkhand the Supreme Court has given a green signal for filing vacant post in the State Consumer Grievance Redressal Commission and District Consumer Grievance Redressal Forum and the State Food and Consumer affair Ministry will start recruitment very soon.
Announcing at a programme organised to commemorate Consumer Rights day here on Monday, Food, Civic Supplies and Consumer affair Minister Saryu Roy said that the recruitment for the posts will begin soon.
The Minister said, “A lot of efforts have to take regarding the issue because awareness level is very low and generally people do not take initiatives in such cases. According to the figure collected by the Department, only 21 per cent people know about the law. The department will run awareness programme among people. As earlier there is no provision in the budget for this issue now the present government will provide funds according to its capability.”
Roy further added, “Consumer movement is still very weak. There is need to materialise the legal procedures. The Consumer Rights Protection Commission will get fund to run awareness among masses.
The department will take help of retired Judges of courts to run the awareness programme and the department will provide fund for this. Only pasting posters and advertising on television can’t spread awareness but we have to visit and meet people to make them aware.”
Informing on the present situation regarding the law, he said, “As many people don’t know about quality of the products like genetically modified seeds and various such kinds of things. Developed countries and multinational companies are only looking for their profits irrespective of quality. So there is need to formulate a policy and an implementation body on the issue, which will not be affected by governments because time to time changing government results in changing of policy.”
Speaking on the occasion Roy informed that according to the provision of new consumer rights protection bill which was passed by the Loksabha in this year clearly says that promoter or advertiser, apart from trader and producer, will also be penalized if there is spurious things find in the products. A numbers of issues have been included in the new bill as telemarketing, online marketing, services sector etc.”
With a view to increase awareness in the masses the department has distributed awards at the occasion.
In the woman category Premlata Consumer Awareness Award, A check of Rs.25 thousand, given to Kiran Singh, from Ranchi and in the man category Birsa Munda Consumer Awareness Award given to Chandradeo Manjhi.
Former Vice Chancellor Kolhaan University, RPPN Singh and Vice Chancellor, Vinoba Bhawe University Ramesh Sharan with other officers of the department were present at the occasion.