Consumer rights draft law

The draft to enact a law to protect the rights of consumers saw the light of day in 1994, but it has not made much headway since then. The draft had made its tortuous journey through different ministries, before ending up in the commerce ministry for their so-called final scrutiny. But this ministry has also failed to address the issue with due haste.

Consumers' rights, unfortunately, have never been a matter of high priority in our context of a seller dominant market. The poor consumers are there to be only swindled and exploited. They have to buy adulterated food and below standard commodities and are shortchanged in weights and measures; yet they do not know who they should turn to for getting a fair deal. The seasonal mobile courts are definitely not enough to uproot the well-entrenched culture of producing and marketing substandard foodstuffs.

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And there are many areas where the consumers are exposed to highly immoral and unethical business practices.

It is a welcome development that a section of the businessmen wants a consumers' rights protection law to be in place, so that they can follow the right kind of business practices. Besides, they too are consumers, equally vulnerable to being cheated. Obviously, such a law will be as much a deterrent to illegal activities as it will be a guideline for the manufacturers to follow.

The problem has been aggravated by the fact that the Bangladesh Standards & Testing Institution (BSTI) is a body with responsibility but no power nor adequate equipment. The government should beef up the BSTI so that it can play an assertive role in safeguarding the rights of consumers.

The vigil against illegal business practices must be strengthened at several points. For example, the quality of both imported and locally manufactured goods has to be ensured without drawing any demarcation line between them.

Protection of consumers' rights is an essential feature of any pro-people system of governance. But successive governments have neglected the issue, thus allowing the business culture to be vitiated by the profiteering of unscrupulous elements. We believe the law to protect consumers' rights must be enacted as a matter of top priority, without wasting any more time.