World Consumer Rights Day: Here Are Some Common Problems Consumers Face In India

World Consumer Rights Day is observed every year to spread awareness about the common concerns of consumers. The consumer movement marks March 15 with World Consumer Rights Day every year to raise worldwide awareness about consumer needs and rights.

Celebrating the day is a chance to demand that the rights of all consumers are protected and respected, and to protest against social injustices and market abuses which undermine those rights.

The consumer is the most neglected being in the current scarcity ridden society. A business unit cannot ignore its consumers if it wants to flourish. But even after many Acts and Rules, consumers in India suffer from various problems.

Adulteration

Even after paying a high price, consumers do not get pure or quality goods most of the time. The organisation usually supplies adulterated goods for their profit maximisation.

Food adulteration is the act of intentionally debasing the quality of food offered for sale, either by the admixture or substitution of inferior substances or by the removal of some valuable ingredient. The practice of food adulteration is rising every day in the country. It is thriving, unnoticed by shopkeepers in a hurry. There is a duplicate for most of the popular brands in the market. Edible oil, cereals and auto spare parts, there is a duplicate for everything.

In India, adulteration is a fuelling business. Foodstuff is one of the primary targets as it is easy to adulterate it and getaway. Turmeric powders are mixed with chemical colours to make them look brighter. Salt with chalk powder, peppercorns with dried papaya seeds etc. Coriander powder with sawdust, tea leaves with coloured leaves, coffee seeds with tamarind seeds, several vegetables are coloured with dyes to make them look bright, and some are even carcinogenic. Chilli powder is mixed in the brick powder.

It is not just food, but anything that sells, drinking water, petrol, diesel; the list is endless.

Lack Of Awareness

A consumer has every right to accept or reject goods without being cheated and exploited. But all this requires consumer awareness towards their rights. However, the majority of the Indian consumers have a low level of awareness and less extent of utilisation of available consumer rights.

Consumer rights are considered the basic human rights as per the constitution as a part of the Right to life. But unfortunately, in India, the majority of the consumers themselves are not aware of the rights. The reasons are illiteracy, compromising attitude, having less voice, illegal practices, etc.

In India, many laws and principles are there to safeguard the consumers, including Doctrine of Caveat Emptor, Principle of Caveat Vanditor, Traditional Doctrine of OBUS PROBONI, Principle of Respectfulness, Principle of Sovereignty and the most important is Consumer Protection Act 1986.

However, even after an available legal framework, enforcement of various consumer protection laws is at a very low level. Due to the lack of enforcement and implementation of consumer laws, the business people are constantly showing thumb to consumer rights. Poverty and illiteracy are too high in India as compared to the developed nations, due to which consumers in the country cannot play a vital role in any consumer-related issues against dishonesty and unfair trade practices.

Exploitation

Consumers have been the victim of exploitation since time immemorial. In India, the consumers are in a most deplorable situation, where they are made to pay exorbitant prices for essential goods and services by the business people, for whom profit-making is the sole aim without public interest. People in business follow unethical business practices, taking the existing situation to their advantage and making a profit at the cost of consumers. Consequently, the consumers' interest is relegated to the backward in the complex economy worldwide. Consumers do not get qualitative and pure goods in the market, though every advertisement assures them of only purity and quality. Most of the items are either degraded or inferior products.

Even after 34 years of the Consumer Protection Act (CP Act) 1986, and its subsequent amendments including CP Bill 2018, there is not much headway favouring consumers. The merchants and mediators exploit the situation to the utter disadvantage of consumers by adopting all sorts of malpractices like adulteration, underweight of goods, selling of inferior quality goods or duplicate goods, charging exorbitant prices, adopting misleading advertisements in the mass media, adopting cyber crimes etc. It is a situation wherein the consumers are not sure of getting quality goods manufactured and presented in hygienic conditions and at competitive prices in the markets.

Every day the consumers are being cheated one way or other in all dimensions, which are detrimental to the health of all human beings as we are all consumers. The consumers bear all these evils silently without protesting, though they have every right to protect themselves against these malpractices. Even those few consumers who know about their rights tend to be cynical and do not complain against unethical business practices.

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