Published: July 12, 2016 4:52 am On:
Business
Pushpa Raj Acharya
Minister
for Supplies Ganesh Man Pun and other government officials monitoring
fish shop at Kalimati vegetable and fruit market in Kathmandu on
Tuesday, July 5, 2016. Photo: RSS
Kathmandu, July 11
Consumer
rights activists have started questioning the efficacy of government’s
special market monitoring initiative, as a high-level team formed to
look into cases of violation of consumer rights seems to be taking a
soft stance against those caught red-handed in malpractices related to
sales of consumer goods and services.
A
high-level market monitoring team led by Supply Minister Ganesh Man Pun
had recently found traders at Balkhu Agriculture, Vegetables and Fruits
Market fleecing customers by tampering weighing scales. In another
incident, the team had found slaughterhouses selling rotten,
maggot-infested meat.
The high-level market monitoring team, which
also comprises representatives of the Nepal Bureau of Standards and
Metrology, the Department of Drug Administration, the Department of Food
Technology and Quality Control, Nepal Police and consumer rights
groups, was formed to expedite the process of bringing those engaged in
malpractices to book. It, thus, had the mandate to scrap licences of
perpetrators on the spot.
However,
as the week-long market monitoring drive wrapped up today, the
Department of Supply Management and Consumer Protection — the authorised
market monitoring agency — has not filed a single case in the court
against anyone found engaged in unethical business practices.
“The
market monitoring team was headed by the supply minister, who chairs
the Consumer Protection Council — a high-level body for the protection
of consumers’ rights. And yet, it has not taken any concrete action
against the guilty,” said Jyoti Baniya, chairman of Forum for Protection
of Consumers’ Rights.
Minister
for Supplies Ganesh Man Pun during a monitoring at a gas bottling plant
in Dhading, on Wednesday, February 24, 2016. Photo: Keshav Adhikari
According
to him, the high-level team had the authority to immediately file
lawsuit against those found engaged in malpractices, but it failed to
exercise that right.
“Instead, the DoSMCP has decided to summon
those caught red-handed and listen to their version of the story. This
is an indication that those caught will soon be acquitted,” Baniya said.
The
DoSMCP, on the other hand, says it had summoned the traders found
engaging in unethical businesses for clarification. “The department will
analyse the cases and collect the evidences before filing case against
the ill-practitioners,” said Laxman Shrestha, spokesperson for DoSMCP.
Baniya, on the other hand, argued that evidences collected during the
monitoring were more than sufficient to file cases against them.
After
collecting evidences, the DoSMCP has said it would forward the cases of
slaughterhouses to the Department of Livestock Services,
pharmaceuticals-related cases to the DDA, cases related to tampering of
weighing machines and scales to the NBSM and other cases to the related
departments.
Minister
for Supplies Ganesh Man Pun informs journalists about his monitoring at
the Patan Industrial Estate of Lalitpur on Wednesday, July 6, 2016.
Photo: RSS
Baniya claimed that those engaged in malpractices
would get immunity if the DoSMCP passed on the cases to the concerned
departments, as the latter do not have the right to file cases related
to consumer rights.
Baniya’s fears may not be totally unfounded,
as Keshav Prasad Premy, director general of the DLS, said though the
Animal Slaughterhouse and Meat Inspection Act was enacted in 1999, the
law has not been enforced properly because the local bodies
(municipalities, village development committees) have not shown
willingness to develop properly managed slaughterhouses.
“The
slaughterhouses have been run traditionally and are not identified as
slaughterhouses as per the standard provisioned by the law,” he said,
adding, “In this situation, we cannot take action against those who are
running slaughterhouses as their traditional occupation.”
Similarly, other laws framed to protect interests of consumers are very lax.
source:https://thehimalayantimes.com/business/efficacy-govts-market-monitoring-questioned/
२८ असार, काठमाडौं । प्रमुख प्रतिपक्ष नेपाली कांग्रेसले राष्ट्रिय सहमतिको सरकार गठनमा सहयोग गर्न नसक्ने प्रस्ट पारेको छ ।
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