Consumer rights implementation urban and rural areas
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Consumer Rights Awareness in Urban and Rural Areas of Muzaffarnagar
and Saharanpur District: An Empirical Study
Consumer Rights Awareness (CRA)
Consumer rights awareness (CRA) is most vital to society and a way to eliminate malpractices
by the manufacturers, producers, and marketers. The heartening part of present day consumer
courts to uphold the grievances, agony and strive for a transparent method of essential
commodities, services reaches the consumers & to keep the service providers as well as
manufacturers, marketers at bay. Corruptions at all stages let those traders to go scot free and
unpunished. Hence the need of the consumer rights awareness and legal remedies through
consumer courts to help the society’s welfare. The awareness is much needed today as we pay
for the products from their hard earned money and they should get its worth. Consumers have
been all along mute spectators to those malpractices and fraudulent trade practices so for and it is
time to tame this evil which spoils the society. The present day techniques by many firms to
mislead the customers by reduction of weight, quality, price differences, worthless services, lack
of after sales service by ignoring customer’s complaints, requests, and lethargic high handedness
of monopoly practices. It is consumer fundamental right to know about the safety, durability,
worthiness of any product they buying. There are many instances that consumer insists for bills,
records, warrantee cards and many times they ignore and it leads to black money transactions,
malpractices and what not. Every product has to be displayed with date of manufacturing, weight
measurements, maximum retail price (M.R.P.) and warnings of its misuse. Although there are
number of laws introduced and still the traders find it easy to dodge and ultimately consumers
are the sufferers. Right from the start consumers have been cheated by wrong information’s,
higher pricing, after sales service. With regard to service providers, they take advantage of
consumer urgency and exploit them. Take for example, Recent methods to reduce the weight and
maintaining its price by biscuit manufactures, cases of cement bags sold with lesser contents, the
medical services by those corporate & private hospitals, exorbitant tuition fees, capitations fees
by educational institutions and do consumers have any say on their terms? Parking lot woes areanother area of disturbing for every motorist; do they charge a uniform rate? Every day
consumers are deprived of their mental peace and forced to tensions due to unfair practices by
the trade & services as well as losing their valuable funds in turn. Purchase of Consumer goods
and essential commodities always bring us bitter experiences and regret.
Consumer Protection Laws & Policies
There are great differences between developing and developed countries in social, political and
economic fields. India is one of the developing countries. India suffers with several drastic
troubles, such as unemployment, poverty, illiteracy, overpopulation etc. the majority of
consumers are illiterates. They do not know their rights and even the law of sales. They could not
organize themselves against the unfair trade practice as a result the business people exploited
them to the debt.
There are several provisions incorporated in earlier enactments to protect the interests of
consumers such as: The Sale of Goods Act, 1930, The Indian Contract Act, 1872, Agricultural
Produce, (Grading and Marketing) Act, 1937, Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940, Drugs (Control)
Act, 1950, Drugs and Magic Remedies (Objectionable Advertisements) Act, 1954, Prevention of
Food Adulteration Act, 1954, Essential Commodities Act, 1955, Essential Services Maintenance
Act, 1968,Trade and Merchandise Marks Act, 1968, Standards of Weights and Measures Act,
1976, Bureau of Indian Standards Act, 1986,The Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices
Act, 1969 etc.
However all these laws fail to protect the consumer in full satisfaction there are defects. They
contain provisions tedious litigations expensive, time delayed procedures in civil and criminal
courts. The traders are full trained in tackling the innocent and untrained consumers. In 1983, the
General Assembly of United Nations adopted certain guidelines for protecting the consumers. In
1985 it also adopted a resolution requesting the member states to formulate the Acts for the
protection of consumers and educate them. Inspired by it the Indian Parliament enacted
Consumer Protection Act, 1986, which has brought several drastic changes in consumer
movement in India. In India, consumer protection movement was at the end of twentieth century
the consumer protection was enacted. The Consumer Protection Act, 1986 is a milestone in the