The violation of consumer rights is commonplace in Bangladesh for various reasons - low moral standards of businesses, consumers' ignorance of their rights and more importantly weak legislation and protection mechanisms.
With its Third-World legacy, Bangladesh lags way behind in ensuring consumer rights. It was Europe where the idea of consumerism evolved since the 19th century. Initially, establishing a consumer protection mechanism was in fact a struggle against capitalism and food fraud. The first consumer protection organisations came into being in Denmark and the first consumer council was created in Great Britain in the mid-20th century to enable consumers the right to have a say on issues reserved to producers and traders.
In Bangladesh, policymakers did not feel the need for a consumer protection mechanism until 1985 when the United Nations General Assembly adopted a set of guidelines for consumer protection, granting international recognition to consumer rights. The United Nations Guidelines for Consumer Protection (UNGCP), which was expanded in 1999, requires governments to develop and maintain a strong consumer protection mechanism, taking into account the guidelines and relevant international agreements.
Countries concerned about consumer rights began initiatives immediately to formulate a statute to this effect. For example, our neighbouring India took just one and a half years following the adoption of UNGCP to legislate a consumer protection law. Bangladesh took time until 2009 to enact such a law – the Consumer Rights Protection Act. Successive governments since the mid-eighties kept drafting and scrutinising the law for two and a half decades despite the prevalence of grave infringement of consumer rights and constant pressure and advocacy by rights groups. But when the law was finally passed, it was found to have failed to satisfy the rights activists, who expected the statute would provide for the constitution of a quasi-judicial body, as in India, comprising stakeholders, including rights advocates, civil society members and business leaders. India set up the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (NCDRC), which is headed either by an incumbent or a retired Supreme Court judge, in 1988 under the Consumer Protection Act of 1986 at the national level. At the state and district levels, the country has consumer protection councils with the state-level body being headed by the minister in-charge of consumer affairs in the state and the district-level council headed by the collector of the district. Both the commission and council are vested with huge authority to deal with cases of consumer rights violations.
In Bangladesh, the law has provided for a full-fledged government department and we have got the Directorate of National Consumers' Right Protection (DNCRP) headed by a director general. The establishment of a pure government department frustrated the consumer protection efforts from the very beginning. The department is struggling to tackle the widespread incidents of consumer rights violations. A consumer rights commission, once under discussion, could not be established due to opposition from bureaucrats. If it is so, the DNCRP will perhaps remain an extreme example of how a public interest effort can be spoiled by bureaucratic interference.
However, it is good to see officials of the DNCRP, sometimes even its director general, aided by executive magistrates, conducting regular drives against consumer rights violators including price manipulators, profit mongers, counterfeiters, forgers, substandard goods manufacturers and sellers, etcetera. The drives are yielding some results. But this action and its results are far from what Bangladesh needs as a country where the rights of consumers are rampantly infringed. The amount of fine the DNCRP is authorised to impose is meagre compared to the level of violations. So, it does serve well to get the country rid of the ill. Let the government work out a more effective consumer protection mechanism good enough to save consumers from rights infringements.
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