Minister for Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs and Tribal Affairs, Choudhary Zulfkar Ali today said the Department has put a mechanism in place for effective implementation of various provisions of Essential Commodities Act.Responding to a Calling Attention Notice by Surinder Kumar Choudhary in the Upper House, the Minister informed that the Department has been regularly fixing prices of various Essential Commodities including Fresh Vegetables and Fruits, Confectionary/Bakery Items, Milk and Milk products, Mutton and Poultry products, various edible items available at class 2nd restaurant and tea stall, saloon etc.He further informed that the Department has an elaborate monitoring and supervision mechanism in place wherein teams of officials headed by a TSO under the supervision of Assistant Director of the concerned District regularly ensure the implementation of the approved rates of the Department.
So far the Department of FCS&CA, LMD has inspected 93396 business establishments and 23,215 booked, besides Rs 101.33 lakh has been realized by the department. Similarly, for the implementation of J&K Consumer Protection Act, department has taken several steps like Effective Enforcement for Dual MRP on packed items, Special drive for deceptive packs/unfair trade practices, Enforcement of ban on service charge and follow up in courts, Organization of meetings with traders organization for voluntary compliance and Comprehensive checking of prominent malls and Business establishments.Besides, the Department is also using various platforms to educate the consumers through electronic and print media regarding the rates of essential commodities frequently.
Moreover, the Department is also disseminating the rates /scales of food grains, Sugar and Kerosene Oil provided by the Department to the consumers regularly through Print Media and Important Consumer related occasions like National Consumer Day etc. are also effectively utilized to educate masses with regard to their basic rights as a consumer and their legal implementations, he added.The Minister also said that conscious consumer and involvement of society is essential to curb the violation of laws.He further informed that the department has established grievance redressal mechanism in FCS&CA with dedicated toll free nos: 1967, 18001807011, 18001807106 and 18001807105.Under End to End Computerization project, the Department has put in place an Online Grievance Redress Mechanism where complaint is redressed by the concerned in a time bound manner and the consumer is apprised of the disposal.Moreover, the Department is effectively monitoring the cases of Hoarding and profiteering through its Enforcement Wings working in all the districts.MLCs, Mohammad Khursheed Aalam and Naresh Kumar Gupta also raised supplementaries.