Minister for Food, Civil Supplies, Consumer Affairs and Information, Choudhary Zulfkar Ali today called on Union Minister for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, Ram Vilas Paswan at New Delhi and sought financial aid for various consumer affairs related projects in Jammu and Kashmir. Zulfkar also handed a memorandum seeking attention of the Union Ministry regarding various issues of Jammu & Kashmir pertaining to Consumer Affairs and Legal Metrology.Seeking adequate funding for implementation of Confonet Scheme in J&K, Zulfkar said that since registration of complaints, recording of court proceedings, issue of notices, generation of cause lists, recording of judgments, record-keeping and generation of statistical reports and all other court related activities are carried out through this standardized software alone, the State Government desires to implement Confonet in Jammu and Kashmir for which central funding is required.Demanding grant-in-aid for construction of infrastructure of Legal Metrology Department in Jammu & Kashmir, the State Minister projected that J&K having 22 districts requires proper infrastructure for which a financial assistance to the tune of Rs 8.5 crore is needed to construct Working Standard Laboratories in every district along with construction of R&D Lab in Jammu.
In view the topography and geographical disadvantage of the State, the Minister informed Paswan that 22 enforcement vehicles are highly required, each for a district in J&K.The Minister also projected that a set of Secondary Standard equipments and 15 sets of Working Standard lab Equipments are required for the labs of Legal Metrology Department besides 26 sets of computers for the Department.Zulfkar also pressed for funding to develop infrastructure for District Consumer Foras and State Consumer Commission for broaden the scope of Commission by opening two Benches each at Leh and Rajouri.He also said that the State Government is contemplating to setup State Consumer help line numbers and establish Consumer Welfare fund. He said funds to the tune of Rs 7.5 crore as Centre share and Rs 2.5 crore from State are required to create this Fund. He also demanded setting up of Retails Price Monitoring Cell (RPMC).The Union Minister assured that Centre would give a considerate look to all the projected demands to mitigate the all issues pertaining to FCS&CA and Legal Metrology. He also praised the Minister for efficiently running the Department in J&K and ensuring greater transparency in its functioning. He suggested holding Gram Panchayats to address issues regarding Food and Consumer Affairs.