Thousands of shops penalised in consumer-protection drive

FE Team | Published: October 16, 2011 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

Monira Munni At least 2,572 shops and factories have been penalised for selling date-expired goods and cheating consumers in a nationwide drive against rogue traders by a newly constituted state-run agency, officials said Saturday. The number represents four out of ten businesses the Directorate of National Consumers Right Protection (DNCRP) has raided in the first six months after it was launched by the government. DNCRP has also fined them Tk 26.7 million, but the "vigorous" drive has so far proved to be too inadequate to stem the tide of price gouging, which is deeply ingrained in the country's retail industry. Officials have described the six-month-long drive successful, but they admit the agency needs offices nationwide to ensure that the consumers are not taken for an easy ride. "We started our market monitoring programmes in an effort to enforce the consumer protection laws," Director General (DG) of the newly created agency M Abul Hossain Mian said. Mian said of the 6,500 shops, factories, retaurants and pharmacies that his agency has raided in the past six months, 2,572 were found to have flouted the consumer protection laws, notably selling date-expired foods. "DNCRP has carried out the drive 250 markets in the contry's major cities and district towns. We've fined these traders about Tk26.7 million." The shops have been penalised in line with the Consumers Right Protection Act, which empowers the agency with enough weapons to go after the rogue traders and retailers. But Mian said the directorate needs more bite, especially inspectors at all divisional cities and district towns, to tackle the price gougers and sellers of shoddy products. "Initially we have only limited workforce when we launched the drive," he said adding, "but now gradually the number is increasing". The government has approved 233 posts for the new department. He said DNCRP offices have been set up in Khulna, Chittagong and Rajshahi and four more will be set up in the other divisional cities of the country by end of this year. "We have taken a move to set up DNCRP offices at all 64 districts so that unscrupulous traders cannot violate consumers rights," the DG said. The DNCRP headquartered at Kawran Bazaar is aimed at cracking down on rogue traders so that they don't sell date-expired and spurious commodities to the consumers. He said if a consumer is cheated and deprived by any unscrupulous trader, he could lodge a complaint to the DNCRP through e-mail, fax, text message or letter within 30 days of the occurance of the crime. Earlier the government formed the National Consumers Rights Protection Parishad (NCRPP) in November 2009 with the commerce minister as the chairman of its governing council.