World Consumers Rights Day : DoC to file case against 13 firms

KATHMANDU, MAR 16 -

The Department of Commerce (DoC) is preparing to file case against 13 businesses involved in wrongdoings in the market.

The move follows the monitoring of 614 business firms dealing in daily essentials goods, sweets, drinking water, and petroleum products, among others, over the last eight months.

When it comes to taking legal action against offenders, only three cases—against Corner Taja Gudpak Bhandar, Shree Krishna Gudpak Bhandar and Trishul Gas—have been filed in the court so far.

However, DoC Officiating Director General Shankar Paudel said they would continue the monitoring and take action against the wrongdoers. At an interaction on the World Consumers’ Rights Day here on Thursday, Poudel stressed on the need for better coordination among government agencies to yield better results of inspection activities.

Minister for Commerce and Supplies Lekhraj Bhatta also admitted that the government has been failing to control wrongdoings in the market. “We adopted market economy, ensuring rights of everybody to do business, but we failed to monitor the increased number of businesses properly,” said the minister.

Bhatta said the government is preparing to provide additional resources and workforce to government agencies, including the Department of Commerce and Nepal Bureau of Standard and Metrology, to enhance their monitoring capacity.

Although market inspections were expedited this year, many wrongdoers are yet to be brought to book. At the programme, consumer rights activists reiterated their demand of prompt action against wrongdoers. They also demanded that the government form a consumer court at the earliest to take swift action against consumer rights violators.

“The government has to form the court soon and also formulate an umbrella act that governs all government bodies concerned,” said Ram Chandra Simkhada, secretary at the Forum for Consumer Rights Nepal. The proposed amendment to the Consumer Protection Act 1997 has provisioned a consumer court which is expected to solve cases related to consumers’ rights swiftly without needing to knock the door of the court for final verdict, which makes the whole process lengthy. The proposed bill is awaiting the parliament’s final approval.

Once the act is implemented, it will give market inspection officers semi-judicial powers to slap fines of Rs 500 to Rs 15,000 on wrongdoers on the spot, depending on the seriousness of the wrongdoing.

The World Consumer Rights Day was marked on Thursday across the world under the theme ‘our money, our rights: campaigning for real choice in financial service’.

Source: Kantipur