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``Consumer movement must spread to villages''

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: Minister of State for Food and Consumer Affairs M. Taslimuddin on Friday surprised a national meeting of the Consumer Coordination Council here by declaring that "he was a Minister for Consumer Affairs but he did not know what the Ministry did for consumers''. Present on the dais were the Secretary Consumer Affairs, the president of the National Consumer Commission, Chairperson of the National Commission for Women and a host of other officials and foreign dignitaries. The Ministry was one of the sponsors for the two-day meeting held on the theme, "Empowering the Consumers to Demand Quality Goods and Services''.

The Minister urged the consumer and voluntary organisations participating in the meeting to take the consumer movement into villages and small towns. "They need to be educated on what the Indian Standards Institute (ISI) is all about and what their rights are with regard to adulterated food and potable drinking water.''

Lack of staff, facilities

Mr. Taslimuddin, who is from Bihar, pointed to the lack of staff and facilities at consumer fora at various levels and the backlog of cases. Responding to the Minister's remarks, president of the National Consumer Commission M.N. Shah said it was "practically impossible'' to achieve the target of deciding cases between 90 to 150 days for various reasons.

"In the case of Bihar, for instance, of the 37 district fora, in 30 there were no stenographers or peons. In the State Commission, a computer was lying idle for months because there was no one to operate it and the president and members were not given salaries because the State Government said they were drawing pension as retired officials. Consumer bodies, therefore, need to awaken governments to discharge their duties,'' he said.

On the occasion draft standards for detection of adulterants/contaminants in food products prepared by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) were released. The standards are for quick test methods to be applied by consumer organisations for detection of adulteration in milk and milk products, edible oils, spices, sweets, sugar, common salt, ghee and butter.

Food-testing kit

A food testing kit developed by the Centre for Consumer Education, Research, Teaching, Training and Testing, a Chennai-based voluntary organisation was also released. Speaking to The Hindu, R. Desikan said the Centre proposed to set up a research facility for testing all kinds of food, including the genetically modified, being imported into India.

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