New Delhi/Guwahati: Secretary of the Department of Consumer Affairs Rohit Kumar Singh said on Friday said while the Centre wants to have 750 price monitoring centres by March 31, 2023, all states should establish price monitoring centres in all districts.
Singh, during a day-long workshop in Guwahati, said that the Centre intends to achieve the target of having 750 price monitoring centres by March 31, 2023, for which financial support will be assured.
The Secretary said that through the Price Monitoring Division, the Centre is making all efforts to control prices of essential commodities thereby, keeping check over inflation.
The Department of Consumer Affairs regularly generates data about prices and has a system of collecting prices of 22 essential food commodities in the country.
The workshop was organised in association with the government of Assam to address the issues concerning consumer protection in the northeastern states.
The Secretary during his inaugural address informed how the Department, National Commission, State Commissions and District Commissions and the whole ecosystem in terms of quality, quantity, standards, testing and benchmarks through BIS, NTH, Legal Metrology and National Consumer Helpline are working together towards the protection of consumer interests.
He further highlighted the role of the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) as the National Standards Body of India, in developing Indian Standards and implementation of voluntary and mandatory standards such as Quality Control Orders and how through Legal Metrology and Weights and Measures consumers are assured that what is being offered, the quantity being offered is exactly same as claimed on the product.
Speaking about the domain of consumer protection he underlined that infrastructure of commissions, human resources in consumer commissions and use of technology are three verticals through which the whole ecosystem of consumer protection is made robust and responsible.
It was assured that Department will provide its complete support to all states for having the necessary infrastructure for the effective functioning of consumer commissions as per the policy which states that 50 per cent will be funded by the state government and 50 per cent will be funded by the Central government and requested all the representative of the state government to provide its Utilisation Certificates of the previous year if pending, without which the Centre cannot release the funds for the subsequent year.
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