'Proper legislation essential to protect consumer rights'

16 Mar, 2006

The Advisor to Sindh Chief Minister for Environment & Information Technology Nouman Sehgal has said that proper legislation with institutional improvement was essential to protect the consumers' rights in the country.
This he observed while addressing launching ceremony of Consumer Rights Forum at new auditorium of Press Club Hyderabad on Wednesday.
Addressing the participants Sehgal said that overall situation was deteriorated and no one was ready to listen to other considering himself as a right person. Besides neither the institutions concerned were ready to perform their obligations entrusted to them nor were people fulfilling their responsibilities.
He said that in developed countries people were paying their taxes accordingly to enable their governments for establishment of strong institution whereas here we all were acting vice versa.
Sehgal also criticised over the industrialists and said that they were not agreeing to take care about the consumers' rights in the society. Giving example, he said that they were investing billions of rupees over their projects but not ready to spent little amount over installation of treatment plant to get their toxic water treated before discharging it into canals or agricultural land.
He said that this was injuring the health of the people who were either consumers of drinking water or vegetable. He said that his ministry has taken serious note of this violation of consumers' rights and has got the industrialists agreed for installation of treatment plants with their industries at Karachi and Hyderabad.
Likewise plying of smoke emitting vehicles was another issue concerning with the consumers' rights which was also being solved under recently approved scheme to ensure fitness of each vehicle. Besides, licensing & checking authority for vehicles was also being separated to ensure implementation over the traffic rules.
He said that his ministry has also worked out over the evaluation of water quality of Hyderabad and has recommended for installation and improvement of filter plants as present quality of water was not according to standard of World Health Organisation (WHO). He said that his ministry was also implementing over the scheme for providing IT training to the youths.
He said that in order to face the monopoly of KESC and Hesco, the Sindh government was implementing the programme of alternative energy for which a chunk of 35,000 acres land has been acquired where 22 investors have expressed their interest of investment. He said that under this programme 10 percent energy of total requirement would be produced in first phase.
Lauding the role of the organisers for constituting consumers' rights forum, the advisor to Sindh chief minister for IT & environment assured that his ministry would extend its full support in any project or programme of consumers' forum in practical sense.
The Zila Naib Nazim Hyderabad Zaffar Rajput addressing the forum said that district government Hyderabad was already in interaction with the business community and allied departments to ensure stability of fair prices in the district. He said that it was the prime duty of concerned government departments to protect the consumers' rights but due to their loose administration and lack of interest, the industrialists, and businessmen were taking benefit of the situation and charging high prices by hoarding their commodities. He said that this was a sensitive issue which can be dealt jointly by people and concerned department.
Delivering keynote address, the renowned journalist, columnist and writer A.U. Malik said that it was because of institutional failure, which was not only causing violation of consumers' rights but also affecting overall developments of the country.
He said that neither organisation concern were conducting field survey in practical manner to collect the data for demand and supply of commodities nor they have any co-ordination among them, as such economic survey reports being issued by the government organisations were not matching to each other.
He said that this trend was causing imbalance production in the market thus causing losses either to consumer or producer due to its demand and supply.
He said that in case of crises, the government was spending million of rupees over importing food items but was not ready to pay sufficient subsidy to its own producers to encourage them, while developed countries were paying billions of dollars as subsidy to their producers to keep demand and supply stable in the country.
He said that it was purely technical and professional matter which can only be solved by the specialists of concerned field and profession but not by the officers of CSS cadre who only know about administrative matters. He said that writ of administration was another problem, which causing violation of consumer rights.
Placing an example of not implementing government orders by sugar mill owners to start crush season, Malik said that this deficiency of government has also empowered one class to violate the rights of other.
He said that government economic reports were mostly based on per capita income of the people but per capita income was not perfect indicator for social development as it was being obtained from collective income of those who were earning high and those who have their income below poverty rate, thus not represents to the economic condition of poor people.
Muhammad Nawaz Shah from Sindh Abadgar Board in his address said that being consumer of pesticide and fertiliser, the growers of the Sindh were being suffering from their huge loss due to adulteration in these items. He said that in this year one million tons of sugar has been produced in Sindh and 1.2 million tons in Punjab province but sugar was being sold at the rate of Rs 42 per Kg at plea of sugar shortage in the market. He claimed that same stock was available last year but prices were not as high as today. Similarly government was not paying proper attention over purchase of wheat and expressed his apprehension that it may lead to the wheat crises in future.
The President HCCI Masood Perwaiz in his address said that energy crises in the country has created economic problem both for the consumers and producers. He said that day by day increase in the prices of oil was affecting only to users, while traders and government was enjoying high ratio of their profits. He suggested that government should adopt flexible policy in providing energy to its users.
Zia Awan, Advocate in his speech said that under the Article 9 about "Right to Live" every citizen has constitutional protection about his basic needs. Highlighting over the problems of high prices, plying smoke emitting vehicles, trading of outdated and substandard medicines in the market, Awan said that concerned government institutions and people should be proactive to protect their rights.
He said that it has been reported that during our travelling, eating, purchasing or hiring the services of any organisation, rights of consumers were not being observed accordingly due to economical empowerment of commercial organisations. He said that awareness among the consumers should be made so high that the consumers could get their rights protected directly by approaching the Supreme Court.
Earlier, the Chairman of the Consumers Forum Adeel Pathan, in his welcome address said that this forum has been formed to provide platform to all stakeholders to discuss and decide specially about the consumer rights.
He said that March 15, was being celebrated as World Consumer Day in all countries that shows that international communities have identified violation of consumers' rights as main obstacle in the development of any country.
He said that globally the theme of this year under the consumers' rights was declared to provide energy to over two billion people who were lacking this essential need in this modern era.

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