CHENNAI: Official machinery in charge of implementing laws on weights and measures all over the country were criticised on Thursday by Union Secretary of Consumer Affairs L. Mansingh.

Expressing his dissatisfaction over the functioning of officials, Mr. Mansingh told a workshop here that "weights and measures, as a subject, has always been a low-priority subject for the Central and State Governments, making the consumers suffer."

Nowadays, several types of medical instruments had come to the market to measure blood pressure and sugar levels of people. Similarly, water and power meters had hit the market. If consumers had grievances about any faulty equipment, the officials had to attend to them.

"Are we, as regulators, being fair to consumers? We are responsible [for redressing the grievances]. But, we are not doing that," said Mr. Mansingh. He was participating in the inauguration of a three-day workshop organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry and the Union Government's Department of Consumer Affairs on practical aspects of package commodity rules to various sectors of Indian industry and consumers.

Mr. Mansingh gave Delhi's example, where power consumers had complained about meters supplied by a distribution utility. He said the issue had attracted wide attention and the Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit had recently convened a meeting to tackle it. Officials of the Bureau of Indian Standards were going around Delhi to ascertain the veracity of the complaints.

Urging manufacturers to conform to the norms and standards laid down in the laws, Mr. Mansingh said any violation might lead to serious consequences and with the increasing level of consumer awareness, the number of cases filed by consumers against manufacturers had also gone up. The management of the manufacturing concerns should establish a "monitorable and transparent public grievance system" and make it a part of their corporate strategy, he said.

He called upon industry and consumers to give their comments on two Bills to amend the existing legislations on weights and measures. The text of the Bills is available on the website of Lok Sabha (http://164.100.24.208/ls/committee/bills.htm).

P.A. Krishnamoorthy, Director (Weights and Measures) in the Department of Consumer Affairs, said lack of uniformity in the implementation of legal provisions, bulk weighing of commodities and short filling of commodities below the advertised quantity in respect of packaged commodities were the areas of concern.

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