Where consumer isn8217;t king

As for consumers, quantity, not quality, seems to give them the satisfaction of having got their money8217;s worth. If light bulbs form very much part of our monthly grocery list, as tellingly pointed out by Shekar Gupta in his well argued article in these column The Duke and the Fusebox, IE, August 25, it is because deep in oursubconscious we have accepted the inev-itability of having to be content with what is gratuitously given to us by the high and mighty in the country.

There is no denying the docility of an average Indian consumer. We end up as willing suckers. Is low literacy, or its absence, a major contributory factor for consumer apathy? Theoretically yes, perhaps. The ground realities are, however, different. A few years ago, the Kerala edition of The Indian Express, jointly with an NGO, tried to gauge consumer response to the Con-sumer Protection Act that had come into vogue around that time.

A detailed questionnaire on the Act was published on the front page of the paper on three consecutive Sundays. Only 110 readers cared to reply to the questionnaire of which only nine, just nine, commented on the various provisions of the Act. The rest were complaints about the quality of goods purchased from local markets, their shoddy nature and high prices and so on and nothing about the Act.

A year later, the experimentwas repeated, slightly more elaborately, with the middle and upper class being the target groups. Copies of the questionnaire were mailed to members of elitist organisations, besides having them distributed through petrol pumps and supermarkets. The outcome of the exercise wasn8217;t different either. The apparent apathy of consumers in a supposedly literate state like Kerala is indeed amazing.

Where does the hitch lie? An Act to protect consumer is in place and agencies to implement them are there , both at the national and state levels. Almost all states have set up consumer courts with the needed powers to protect the interests of the consumer. And yet, the consumer is far from being the king. Why? For one, he is averse to be a litigant and prefers to suffer in silence. For another, the courts are so over-burdened with cases, majority being trivial, that justice is invariably delayed, if not denied.

There is need for a fresh look at the machinery already set up to protect consumer interests. Presently,the courts are located at district headquarters. This prevents consumers of far-flung areas, particularly in big states like UP and Madhya Pradesh, from approaching the courts for justice. A more disparate distribution of the redressal machinery is desirable.

Similarly, under the present dispensation, the state governments can nominate two persons of 8221; adequate standing in society8221; as judges, besides the presiding judge who should either be a district judge or eligible for appointed as a district judge.

This has led to misuse with influence-pedalling getting the better of sound judgment. Ar-guably, instead of protecting the consu-mer, why not discipline the producer who is the source of all problems? Presently, nothing prevents a producer from producing and marketing substandard goods.

Our manufacturers, by and large, have a pathological aversion towards quality. We continue to manufacture and market fuseboxes that are not merely shoddy but shamelessly substandard. Ironically, consumers have nocomplaints. This collective happiness is hampered when someone tells us the truth. Like the Duke of Ed- inburgh.

The writer is a former Resident Editor of The Indian Express, Kerala editions