Parliament passed Consumer protection Bill 2019 recently to amend the Consumer Protection Act 1986.
KEY FEATURES OF BILL;
- Definition of consumer: someone who buys any goods or services for consideration – not include the purchase of goods for RESALE.
- Six rights for Consumer including protection against hazardous goods, right to information right to access a variety of goods etc.
- A central consumer Protection Authority to impose a penalty against misleading advertisements.
- Consumer dispute Redresscommission on nation state and district level.
- Protect the liability of the manufacturer and to compensate for consumers loss.
Do you know: Unix was one of the first operating system kernels implemented in a language other than assembly and that was C. Get list of top c programming questions and answers
SIGNIFICANCE OF BILL:
- A proper definition of the consumer was needed for better implementation of Act.
- By providing consumer certain rights, the consumer now has certain ‘standards’ to gauge the service quality against.
- Misleading ads and repercussions on poor and illiterate population were needed to be contained a central body set up for that.
- To address the grievances of each and every consumer, dispute redresses commission at every level.
- Onus on produces regarding the spurious product will reduce the amorous and malicious tendencies of produces to sell substandard producer.
Following issues and concerns are there –
- Despite setting new bodies like central consumer protection authority, forces should be on inspiring the existing forums.
- More establishments of regulators no proper division of work, qualifications can create a Conflict of interest.
- Rights are not defined properly.
- Lack of awareness among people about the respective activities and rights of consumers.
- Compensation is not ensured often to the consumers and the lack of process to put the onus on producers and a few of their responsibilities.
Following steps can be taken to improve the sets –
- Proper implementation in the spirit in every part of the country.
- Ensure effective functioning of bodies under the Act with concepts like Social Audits.
- Proper standards and discussion of work, responsibilities, mandate with increased accountability.
- Increased awareness among Masses regarding bill.
- Cater to every type of consumer – remote, ‘e’ platforms etc. – Draft e-commerce guidelines for consumer protection is a right step.
Do you know: sizeof operator cannot tell us the size of functions because this operator works on compile time and functions loads in memory at run time. Get list of top c programming questions and answers
Steps like National Action plan for consumer awareness, ‘Jago Grahak Jago’ etc. are right steps. Effects need to be made to maximize the service delivery to a consumer with proper redresses Mechanics in place.