Other States - Pondicherry   

Consumer organisations to get cash awards

Special Correspondent

Meeting on hallmarking of gold and food safety organised

Pondicherry: Local Administration and Civil Supplies Minister A. Elumalai has said that the Administration would soon implement a scheme to present cash awards of Rs 10,000, Rs 7,500 and Rs 5,000 to three top ranking consumer welfare organisations here as a mark of recognition of their contributions and services to protect consumer welfare.

Inaugurating a meeting on `Hallmarking of gold and Food Safety` organised jointly by Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) New Delhi and Consumer Association of Pondicherry (CAP) here on Wednesday, Mr Elumalai said that the prize schemes were in response to the plea made by consumer outfits.

He said that the provisions of Consumer Protection Act should be propagated among the people, as there should be no room for any section of merchants and others to hoodwink the consumers and users of services. He said that it was felt that installation of an equipment to test the purity of gold in ornaments purchased by consumers would not serve any real purpose as only skin purity of ornaments alone could be known instead of the full components that had gone into the ornaments.

He said that the government was trying for alternative arrangements to enable consumers to know precisely the quality of gold used in the ornaments.

President of the Consumer Association S. Vaithianathan and its Secretary P. Muthukrishnan spoke. Director of Industries and Commerce Jayanth Kumar Ray appreciated the holding of the meeting to benefit consumers.

Ms Sneh Batla, the Director of BIS who spoke on the relevance and importance of hallmarking of gold ornaments, said that the country was consuming around 800 tons of gold every year with 80 per cent of it being used for making ornaments. Appealing to the consumers to purchase gold ornaments with BIS Hallmarks, Ms Sneh Batla said that such hallmarks gave assurance and also proof of the quality of the gold in the ornaments and it is a third party assurance introduced by the BIS.

She said that hallmarking of silverwares was also started recently. Twenty eight percent of the total BIS certified jewellers were in the southern part of the country. She also said that the Southern part of the country had as many as 18 hallmarking centres out of the total 34 centres in the country as a whole.

The government would also provide incentives to anyone coming forward to set up a hallmarking centre in places that lacked it. Madhulika Prakash Head of the Department of Food and Health wing in the BIS spoke on Food Safety.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

Consumer organisations to get cash awards
Karnataka Bank set to achieve Rs.100 cr. business
'Implement Consumer Protection Act'
No plan to merge colleges: Rangasamy
PMC meet to discuss poll strategy
AIDWA condemns atrocities against women
Rs. 100 crore development projects for Karaikal

Copyright © 2006, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu