Minister for Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs and Information, Choudhary Zulfkar Ali has said that Jammu and Kashmir Government will adopt best practices of West Bengal Government regarding consumer affairs to ensure effective working of public delivery mechanism in the State. The Minister, who is on a tour to West Bengal to know about success story of the State in Consumer Affairs and Legal Metrology, met West Bengal Minister for Consumer Affairs & Self Help Groups, Sadhan Pande.Zulfkar was briefed in detail about the overall functioning of the West Bengal Consumer Affairs Department through a power point presentation. It was said that the Department has been divided into three Divisions viz Consumer Affairs, Legal Metrology and Consumer Foras.He was also informed about the functioning of consumer wing which deals with safeguarding the interest of the consumers and assists in the redressal of consumer grievances as per the provisions of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986. He was told that one State Commission with an additional 3 bench along with 23 District Fora covering all the districts are currently functioning which have jurisdiction of compliant value upto Rs 20 lakh.
He was also briefed about Confonet scheme implemented by the Department in West Bengal in the backdrop of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 with quasi-judicial machinery like Consumer Forums at the district level and Consumer Dispute Redressal Commissions at the State and National Level. The project aims at serving all sections of its wide target audience through the various services offered by it and provides information on Consumer Rights and Protection, Online Cause Lists, Online Judgments, Online Case Status and Case History etc.Speaking on the occasion, Zulfkar Ali praised the West Bengal Government for adopting such mechanism to address the issues of consumers. He also lauded WB Government for introducing Consumer Affairs subject in curriculum of 6th, 7th and 8th standards in Schools. He said that such practices need to be implemented for awareness among the school children to make them sensitive about the subject.The Minister said that Jammu and Kashmir has also focused attention towards consumer affairs and need of the hour is to focus more on the subject. He said that everybody is a consumer and Government desires to strengthen consumers and make them aware about their rights.