The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Trained personnel for consumer courts inadequate

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Tuesday, Apr 08, 2008
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Trained personnel for consumer courts inadequate

Raghava M.

BANGALORE: The endeavour to bring e-governance into administration of consumer courts in Karnataka seems to be suffering. The National Informatics Centre, which is executing the project, is finding it difficult to find Technical Resource Personnel (TRP) to help consumer courts upload their judgements on the web and to train the court personnel in adaptation of e-governance. It is hard to retain the selected few, as they soon leave for greener pastures, it has been found. This is affecting the project.

The Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution started the Computerisation and Computer Networking of Consumer Forums in the Country (CONFONET) project to network consumer courts. A website ( www.confonent.nic.in) was created to provide judgements, cases listed for the day (case dairy) of all the district consumer forums, State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commissions and the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission.

Each of the 30 district consumer forums in Karnataka has been provided with three computers, broadband facility and software, specially designed by NIC, which is common with other courts across the country. The entire working of the consumer forums, including the orders passed, the next hearing dates and judgements are available on the website. However, other details such as the compensation amount deposited before the forums and e-filing of complaints, which are integral to the complete implementation of the project, are yet to be done. A person with a postgraduate degree in computers is sent as TRP to execute the project.

The NIC has not been able to find TRPs for the 30 consumer forums in the State. “The trained persons leave the work midway in favour of better jobs,” an official from Karnataka State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, told The Hindu.

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