What is a Consumer

• A person who has indicated his or her willingness to obtain goods and/or
services from a supplier with the intention of paying of them.
• Someone who has purchased goods and/or services for personal
consumption.

Who is Consumer
• A Person who has indicated his or her willingness to obtain goods and/or
services from a supplier with the intention of paying for them.
• Someone who has purchased goods and/or services for personal
consumption
• A person or group of people, such as household, who are the final users
of products or services.

Duties of Consumer
• Buying quality products at reasonable price.
• To check the weights and measures before making purchases
• Reading the label carefully.
• To procure the bill, cash received, warranty, etc.
• Shopping carefully and wisely.
• Understanding the terms of the sale.
• Reading and following instructions.

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Consumers Rights
Right to
Information

Right to be Right to
heard Safety

Right to Right to
Redressal choose

Right to
Consumer
Education

Rights of a Consumer
• The RIGHT to satisfaction of basic needs: To have access to basic
essential goods and services, adequate food, clothing, shelter, health
care, education and sanitation.
• The Right to be informed: To be given the facts needed to make an
informed choice, and to be protected against dishonest or misleading
advertising and labelling.
• The Right to get truthful and honest information about the goods and
services which are purchased.
• The Right to choose between products of different qualities and prices,
which are required to satisfy our needs: Personal demands, taste and
others factors of course, affect prices. It is the consumer’s right to
choose a level of quality and performance equal to the price which
he/she is prepared to pay.
• The Right to safety in goods and services bought: The right to expect
that household products and children’s toys, when used according to
manufacturer’s instructions, will not explode, set houses on fire, or
cause personal harm or injury in any way.

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 • The Right to be heard: To Complain to a retailer if one is dissatisfied
about a product or service. To have consumer interests represented in
the making and execution of government policy, and in the development
of products and services.
• The RIGHT of redress: means the right to a fair settlement of just claims.
It includes the right to receive compensation for misrepresentation,
shoddy goods or unsatisfactory services.
• The RIGHT to Consumer Education: means the right to acquire the
knowledge and skills to be an informed and assertive consumer.
• The RIGHT to a Healthy Environment: means the right to a physical
environment that will enhance the quality of life. It includes protection
against environmental dangers over which the individual has no control.

Responsibility of a Consumer
• The Consumer has the Responsibility to protect himself/herself by:
• Shopping carefully and wisely
• Understanding the terms of the sale
• Reading and following instructions
• Getting guarantees in writing
• Saving receipts
• Asking questions at point of sale
• Keeping informed about new products
• The responsibility of carrying out transactions in a business-like way,
such as reporting unsatisfactory products to retailers and manufactures
in order that they may be removed from shelves and future production
• The Responsibility to tell other consumers about any unfair treatment by
a retailer or manufacturer so consumers can protect themselves in
future dealings.
• The Responsibility to report apparently unsafe merchandise to consumer
protection bodies so that they can be tested and if necessary, removed
from the market or be more specifically labelled.
• The Responsibility to maintain and preserve a healthy environment for
future generations.
• The Responsibility of demanding the best value for money.
• Want value for money? Join an action group and let your voice be heard.

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How Consumers are Exploited
• Due to the expansion of business activities in an economy, we have a
variety of goods available in the market. The demand for goods and
services is influenced by the advertisements in television, newspaper
and magazines. The companies spend a considerable amount on a
advertisements alone attract consumers and feed information that they
want us to know, but not the information that we as consumers want.
When we, as consumer, do not have sufficient information about the
products, we normally get exploited and are sometimes even harassed
by business community.

Consumers are Exploited by Traders and Manufactures

• Underweight and under-measurement.
• Sub-standard Quality
• High Prices
• Duplicate Articles
• Artificial Scarcity
• False or Incomplete Information
• Underweight and Under-measurements: The goods being sold in the
market are sometimes not measured or weighed correctly.
• Sub-standard Quality: The goods sold are sometimes of sub-standard
quality. Selling of medicine beyond their expiry dates is generally the
grievances of consumers.
• High Prices: Very often the traders charge a higher price than the
prescribed retail price.
• Duplicate Articles: In the name of genuine parts or goods, fake or
duplicate items are being sold to the consumers.
• Artificial Scarcity: In order to amass illegitimate profit, businessman
create artificial scarcity by hoarding. They sell it later at a higher price.
• False or Incomplete Information: Sellers easily mislead consumers by
giving wrong information about the product, its price, quality, reliability,
life cycle, expiry date and durability.

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Factors Causing Exploitation of Consumers
• Limited Information
• Limited Supplies
• Limited Competition
• Low Literacy
Limited Information: In a capitalist economy, producers and sellers are free to
produce any goods or services in any quantity and there is no regulation on the
prices. In the absence of information about different aspects of the products,
namely, price, quality, condition of use, etc. the consumers are liable to make a
wrong choice and lose money.
Limited Supplies: The consumers are exploited when the goods services are
not available in the required quantity or numbers. This gives us rise to
hoarding and price-escalation.
Limited Competition: When only one producer or group of producers or a
group of persons controls the production and supply of a product, and is in a
position to restrict the availability of supplies, there is a possibility of
manipulation in prices and availability.
Low Literacy: illiteracy is one of the major drawbacks that lead to the
exploitation of consumers. The level of literacy directly affects the level of
awareness about products and the market.

Consumer Protection
The Consumer movement is a socio-economic movement which seeks to
protect the rights of the consumers in relation to the goods purchased and
services availed. Government has accorded high priority to the programme of
consumer protection. The Department of consumer affairs being a nodal
department in the field of consumer protection has initiated a number of steps
to promote a responsible and responsive consumer movement in the country.
Such measures include the use of the multi-media for promoting consumer
awareness and encouraging consumers involvement through efforts of
Government and non-governmental organizations and others.

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Objective of Consumer Protection
• To create suitable administrative and legal mechanisms which would be
within the easy reach of consumers.
• To involve and motivate various sections of society such as consumer
organisations, women and youth to participate in the programme.
• To assist, encourage and provide financial assistance to governmental
and non-governmental organizations to take up various consumer
protection activities; and
• To generates awareness among consumers about their rights and
responsibilities, motivate them to assert their rights and not to
compromise on quality and standards of goods and services and seek
redressal in consumer courts, wherever required.

Competition Law
Competition law, known in the United States as antitrust law, has three main
elements:
• Prohibiting agreements on practices that restrict free trading and
competition between business entities. This includes in particular the
repression of cartels.
• Banning abusive behaviour by a firm dominating a market, or anti-
competitive practices that tend to lead to such a dominant position.
Practices controlled in this way may include predatory pricing, tying,
price gouging, refusal to deal, and many others.
• Supervising the mergers and acquisitions of large corporations, including
some joint ventures. Transactions that are considered to threaten, the
competitive process can be prohibited altogether, or approved subject
to “remedies” such as an obligation to divest part of the merged
business or to offer licenses or access to facilities to enable other
businesses to continue competing.

Consumer Protection Act 1986

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 • The Consumer protection Act, 1986 is a unique piece of legislation as it
provides a separate three-tier quati-judical consumer dispute redressal
machinery at the national, state and district level. The Act is intended to
provide simple, speedy and inexpensive redressal of the consumers
grievances. In terms of the Act, the Central Government first constituted
the Central Consumer Protection Council (CCPC) on 1-6-1987 and it has
been reconstituted from time to time. The CCPC was last constituted in
May, 2003 for three years. So far, the Council has held 23 meetings. The
last meeting was held on 16-07-2003. The state govts/UT
administrations are required to establish the consumer protection
councils at the state level as well as at District levels to strengthen
consumer movement a the grass root level.

Steps Taken By Central Government

• Department of Consumer Affairs is periodically taking up with the state
Govts and UT Administrations, at the level of Chief Ministers, Minister
in-charge of consumer affairs/chief Secretaries/Secretaries dealing with
consumer affairs, the question of strengthening the functioning of the
consumer courts by providing adequate infrastructure and to fill up the
vacancies of presidents/members on time. Review meetings with
States/UTs along with the registrars of the national and state
commissions were taken in batches during August-September, 2003
• Five meetings were held with the President / Members of the National
Commission and the Presidents of the State Commissions along with the
Secretaries, State Govts. to discuss their problems, review the working
of the consumer forums and the utilization of the onetime financial
assistance released for strengthening the infrastructure of consumer
courts in their respective States/UTs. The last meeting took place in
Delhi on15-16 March, 2003.
• Department of Consumer Affairs has been arranging training for non-
judicial Members of the consumer courts at the Indian Institute of Public
Administration, New Delhi. 939 members have been trained so far in 39
training programmes. In addition first course for the Presidents of the
District Forums was also conducted during the year in which 28
participated.

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 • The Central Government, with the approval of Planning Commission,
provided as a one time financial assistance of Rs.61.80 crores in four
installments in the year 1995 to 1999 to the States/UTs to supplement
their efforts for strengthening the infrastructure and other facilities of
consumer forums.
• Periodical reports on the functioning of consumer courts, pendency
position, the progress on filling of vacancies and utilization of one time
assistance scheme are being obtained to review the overall position of
the functioning of the consumer courts and to take it up with the States
for appropriate action.
• The senior officers also reviewed working of the consumer courts during
their visits to States/UTs. Similarly, the President, National Commission
also visits a number of State/UTs to monitor and discuss functioning of
consumer forums in States/UTs.
• 6 posts, including a post of Joint Registrar, were created in January, 2003
in the National Commission for meeting the requirements of section 24B
of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 to enable them to effectively
monitor the working of the consumer forums. Besides this, based on SIU
study report of the Ministry of Finance 18 posts were created in
October, 2003 for the National Commission including 6 posts for its
additional bench. For the purpose of giving effect to the provisions of
the Act, Rules and Regulations are being finalized by the Central
Government.
• Union Territory of Chandigarh submitted proposal for creation of 35
posts in State Commission and District Forums in 2001. Department of
Consumer Affairs requested Ministry of Finance for conducting Work
Study in Nov. 2001. On the basis of their report in April, 2003, 13 posts
have been sanctioned in October, 2003.

Publicity Measures
• "Jago Grahak Jago" weekly radio programme Radio being the cheapest
and having widest reach, a 15 minutes weekly programme "Jago Grahak
Jago" is being broadcast through 110 stations of All India Radio in 22
regional languages. To make the programme popular a prize of Rs. 500 /-
per programme in every language is given. Now the frequency of this

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 programme is being increased and one additional programme has been
started from 14th December, 2003. The episodes for second broadcast
are to be made mainly on the welfare schemes and activities for the
benefit of consumers at large.
• Quarterly Magazine "Upbhokta Jagaran"Department is bringing out a
bilingual quarterly magazine which is sent free of cost to voluntary
consumer organizations, State \& Central Govt. Ministries/Departments,
libraries, Central Consumer Protection Council (CCPC) members and
other concerned to disseminate consumer related information.
• Booklet on welfare schemes of the Ministry: Department is bringing out
a booklet on welfare schemes of the Ministry in Hindi and English
language which is being forwarded up to block level for giving wide
publicity to the schemes of the Ministry so as to enable the people to
take advantage of the schemes.
• Video programmes for schools: Department also prepared 4 video
programmes in Hindi each of 30 minutes duration specially targeting
primary, upper-primary and secondary level students of schools during
the year. The programmes will be made available in CD to schools,
consumer clubs in the schools, State Governments and others concerned
to make the students involved in the consumer movement.
Newspaper advertisements being brought out on the occasion of
National Consumer Day on 24th December and World Consumer Rights
Day on 15th March and also to observe these days involving all
concerned. Department is also considering to issue regular
advertisements for creating awareness among the consumers during
Dec. 2003- March, 2004, i.e., between "National Consumer Day" and
"World Consumer Rights Day"

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