CONSUMER RIGHTS
Self-help groups to protect your interests
Pushpa Girimaji

ARE you dissatisfied with the quality of service provided by your local cable operator? Do you feel agitated about the frequent power cuts or sharp fluctuations in the power supply? Do you feel that the vegetable vendor in your neighbourhood is artificially colouring the vegetables to make them look fresh? Are you exasperated with the water shortage in your locality, or the quality of water supplied by the civic authorities? Do you get irritated with the shabby service rendered by the bank in your locality? If the answer to all these questions is in the affirmative, then it is time you spoke to similarly agitated neighbours and formed a neighbourhood consumer watch.

Be it a problem of irregular power supply, or delays in rectifying faults in telephones, many of these problems are common to people in a specific locality. Similarly, residents of an area are served by a common post office, and if the postman does not deliver letters promptly, it is not just one person who is affected, but all the residents. If an LPG dealer in a particular locality resorts to any unfair or restrictive trade practice, all LPG consumers in the area suffer, and have a common complaint against the dealer.

So why not make it a community issue and take collective action? After all, there is strength in numbers and strength in unity. Take the cable service provider in your locality. With a neighbourhood consumer watch in place, you can not only discuss your problems vis-`E0-vis the service, but can also draw up your own quality parameters and ensure that he follows it. As an individual client, you may not have much of a say in the terms and conditions of service that he wants you to sign, but as a group, you will be able to insist on those terms and conditions being fair to both the parties. The residents’ association-cum- consumer group can also play an important role in bringing about qualitative changes in the banking service in the locality.

Similarly, the neighbourhood consumer watch can get the water supplied by the civic authorities tested and ensure that what is released into the taps is free of contamination and is potable. Such an association of residents can also keep an eye on shopkeepers in the locality. Are they using duly calibrated and stamped weights and measures? Do they keep genuine brands, or are they selling fakes? Are they selling adulterated goods? Do they give a proper receipt for purchases made? Do they impose unfair conditions on customers? Do they take back goods once they are sold? How do they behave with customers?

In fact, such resident-cum-consumer groups can compare quality and prices at different shops and circulate the gathered information to help all residents make an informed choice. This would also generate competition among the shopkeepers and force them to offer quality goods at reasonable prices.

Boycott is an effective method of protesting, and residents’ associations can easily resort to boycotts to express their displeasure over shopkeepers who treat customers shabbily. The association can also complain to law enforcement agencies such as the Department of Weights and Measures and the Department of Prevention of Food Adulteration against the traders who may be violating laws, and ensure that stringent action is taken against them.

Get active, form neighbourhood consumer watch groups and empower yourself. Such neighbourhood groups can also represent the interests of residents of localities at various forums, and may even file action suits before courts, or even work with established consumer groups in the area.

I would like to conclude with this highly inspiring story about how a senior citizen made a difference to the quality of life in a small locality called JP Nagar in Mysore, Karnataka, some years ago. The incidence of crime in the area was so high that residents of the locality lived in constant fear of their houses being burgled and their family members being attacked A senior citizen who came to live there, brought together all the citizens in the locality to form a neighbourhood watch. Armed with lathis and torches, they would patrol the area every night. Thanks to those efforts, today that locality is free of crime.

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