ROUND 10

CHAPTER 12
ISSUES OF THE ENVIRONMENT

Consumer Education: Consumer education means making

consumers aware of their rights and duties. A consumer is a
person who pays a price for a product or service and uses it.
The aim of consumer education are as follows:
1. To reduce waste of natural resources.
2. To encourage reuse/ recycling of materials.
3. To create wise and eco-friendly consumers.

Consumer Protection is a term given to a practice wherein we

need to protect the consumer from the unfair practice,
educating them about their rights and responsibilities and also
redressing their grievances.
Consumer protection makes markets work for both businesses
and consumers. Consumers need to be able to obtain accurate,
unbiased information about the products and services they
purchase. This enables them to make the best choices based on
their interests and prevents them from being mistreated or
misled by businesses.
Why do Consumers need to be Protected?
There are number of products in the market which are injurious
to the health of the consumer. Adulteration, false weights,
monopoly and unfair trade practice are some of the issues that
need to be tackled and are to be addressed to protect the
consumer against it.
How do we Protect the Consumer?
1.The consumer should be educated on their rights and
responsibilities.
2.Their grievances should be redressed.
3.The judicial body requires to provide them with the just.
Consumer Complaints
Consumer Complaints are the first step of redressal that the
customer takes in the process of consumer protection. Hence
this is the most important step that the businesses need to
handle with extreme care and dexterity. And in the times of the
internet consumer complaints and feedback has more power
than ever.
Consumer complaints can actually help an organization
improve their products and services. It is a great form of
feedback. It gives you a very fair measure of customer
satisfaction. And if consumer complaints are dealt with swiftly
it actually helps with customer retention and even improves
the goodwill of your company.
So instead of treating consumer complaints as a hindrance or a
headache, organizations can treat it as a way to bring about
improvement and grow their consumer base.

Consumer rights in India

In the Consumer Protection Act 1986, the lawmakers had
defined six basic consumer rights:

Right to safety: Consumers are protected against marketing of

goods and services that are hazardous to their life and
property. It lays emphasis on the quality of goods and services.

Right to be informed: Consumers have right to be informed

about quality, quantity, content, purity, regulatory standards
and prices of goods and no such information should be
intentionally hidden from them.

Right to choose: Whenever possible, consumers should be

given access to a variety of goods and services at different
prices.
Right to be heard: Consumer’s interests should be heard and
taken into account. They have the right to form organisations
that will represent them in all related matters.

Right to seek redressal: Consumers have the right to seek

redressal against unfair practices and exploitation.
It also includes the right to fair settlement of the genuine
grievances of consumers.

Right to consumer education: Consumers have the right to

acquire knowledge in order to become an informed consumer.

Food Adulteration can be defined as the practice of

adulterating food or contamination of food materials by adding
few substances which are collectively called the adulterants.
Adulterants are the substance or poor quality products added
to food items for economic and technical benefits. Addition of
these adulterants reduces the value of nutrients in food and
also contaminates the food, which is not fit for consumption.
These adulterants can be available in all food products which
we consume daily, including dairy products, cereals, pulses,
grains, meat, vegetables, fruits, oils, beverages etc.
Adulteration is a legal term meaning that a food product fails to
meet the legal standards. One form of adulteration is an
addition of another substance to a food item in order to
increase the quantity of the food item in raw form or prepared
form, which may result in the loss of actual quality of food item.
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.
For instance: Milk can be diluted by adding water to increase its
quantity and starch powder is often added to increase its solid
content.
What is food adulteration and its harmful effects?
Widely and commonly seen examples are asthma, skin diseases
and cancer caused due to intake of fish, fruits, meat or milk
adulterated with chemicals like formalin. Human health is
highly sensitive to food adulteration and sometimes shows
immediate side effects like diarrhea, dysentery, and vomiting.
Kesari Dal causes paralysis of the legs known as lathyrism. Lead
chromate causes stiffness of limbs ,paralysis and even brain
damage.