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WHEN one looks back at the year gone by, what stands out is the way consumers were let down by the government on several fronts. The first in the list would be the runaway prices of vegetables, fruits, cereals, pulses and edible oils. It put household budgets under immense pressure and forced customers to cut down on even essential foods. Let us take just one example in the food basket — dal. The main source of protein for the poor and vegetarians is the dal, the most favoured one being the tur dal. Let us just look at its retail price in different cities in the first week of November — 1 kg of this dal cost as much as Rs 82 in Delhi, Ludhiana, Hisar and Shimla. In Chennai this dal cost as much as Rs 92 a kg. Chandigarh was a bit cheaper at Rs 59. The prices shot up further in December. On December 12, tur cost Rs 91 per kg in Delhi, Rs 65 per kg in Chandigarh, Rs 95 in Lucknow and Rs 85 in Kolkatta. In the first week of November, 2008, tur dal prices in the country varied between Rs 34 and Rs 52, but averaged roughly around Rs 45 a kg. I am quoting from the prices put out by the price monitoring cell of the Union Ministry of Consumer Affairs. An equally distressing development was the dissolution of the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Commission, which looked after customer interest vis-`E0-vis unfair trade practices for over a quarter of a century. Following the notification issued by the Union Ministry of Corporate Affairs under Section 66 of the Competition Act, the MRTP Act stood repealed and was replaced by the Competition Act with effect from September 1. Unfortunately, the competition commission does not deal with unfair trade practices, and this leaves a big vacuum in so far as consumer protection in the area of unfair trade practices is concerned. The government could have easily converted the MRTP Commission into an Unfair Trade Practice Commission, but did not do so. In the absence of a regulator, consumers are often victims of unfair trade practices and deficient services in the housing sector. The situation only got exacerbated in 2009 — thanks to the economic slowdown, many housing projects did not take off at all, or did not get completed within the stipulated time, causing people who had invested in them by taking housing loans, considerable hardship and mental agony. Worse, they found much to their dismay, that there were no exit clauses in the terms and conditions drawn up by the builder. The consumers’ predicament was a grim reminder of the vulnerability of the people in the absence of a regulator to regulate the housing industry and ensure a fair deal. Given this situation, the government should have acted with alacrity and come to the rescue of consumers, but failed to do so. Whatever the mode of transportation, it is the duty of the government to formulate laws that ensure the safety of passengers and enforce them stringently. After all, that is what is governance all about. The tragic death of 45 tourists cruising in the state-run double-decker boat on the Thekkady lake in the Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary in Kerala on September 30 was a grim reminder of the administration’s failure in this regard. This got highlighted further when eight students drowned in Areekode village in Malappuram district in Kerala just a month after the Thekkady tragedy, while crossing a river in a boat. There is no value for human life in India and one sees that again and again in the tragic accidents that happen with unfailing regularity. Many Indian cities take pride in their swank glass and steel buildings. Gurgaon in Haryana is one of them. But do these buildings also incorporate adequate safety measures? Obviously not, going by the tragic death of 28-year-old Nishant Sharma while getting out of a stalled elevator at the DLF Cyber Greens building in Gurgaon in May. If only those who maintained the lift had followed some basic safety precautions, the young man would have been alive today. Unless the guilty in cases such as these are severely punished, we will continue to witness tragedies such as these. If consumers are to see
better days ahead in 2010, government intervention is urgently needed
on several fronts — in bringing down food prices, in ensuring the
safety of its citizens in public places and public transport systems,
and in better protection of people through more laws and regulations.
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