Opinion Give an inch

Protagoras’ contention that man is the measure of all things may have held in ancient Greece but in modern India, the Union ministry of consumer affairs is the sole arbiter of legitimate mensuration. However, arithmetic is not their strong suit. Baffled by fractions, it has increased the prices of its certification services, to the discomfiture of the Linear Measure Manufacturers’ Association. The ministry used to charge 10 or 15 paise for certifying a five metre measuring tape, but it is now 50 paise. It argues that since 10 and five paise coins are no longer minted, the prior prices were insufficiently grounded in reality. The 50 paise coin is the new, solid bottom line.

The ministry has not explained its inability to certify tapes in batches which add up to a payable figure. Five measuring tapes, for instance, would add up to a handsome 50 paise. If its abjuration of fractions were applied generally, almost all financial market transactions would founder. They produce decimals which can only exist in machine memory, never in coin. A share sale might transact at Rs 133.71, and a dividend payout might drop Rs 14.23 into a bank account every morning. Why can’t the ministry round off odd figures, like banks do when they encash?

Advertisement

Or, instead of imposing certification on sellers, why can’t it be a buyer-driven service? That’s how it was in medieval times. A wall in the old market square of the Italian town of Volterra, for instance, bears a measure like a ruler. Buyers who felt cheated could measure cloth they had bought against it. If they were right, they had the right to bind the seller to a tree and pelt him with rotten vegetables. The punishment may be inappropriate for our times, but the idea of certification on demand remains a credible alternative.