Replying to the debate on annual grants of his Ministry in State Assembly, Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution Minister has made some candid confessions about corruption and mismanagement prevalent in the CAPD for which it has become notorious. At a glance, one finds that the department is rife with abject lack of vision and administrative innovation to overcome the bottlenecks. This is one of the State departments known for violation of rules and uniformity of policy. Foremost irregularity pointed out by the members is about Maximum Retail Price (MRP) meaning the price written by the confectioners on consumer items without legal sanctity. In simpler words the Minister confessed that shopkeepers put the price tag according to their sweet will and do not follow any rule and formula to work. For example, a Bisleri water bottle costing 12 rupees in the market is sold at 25 rupees at the airport. Normally the CAPD has to find out the cost of manufacture plus additional expenditure on the produced item be fixed. What is obtaining at the moment is almost something like general loot of the consumer. And the concerned authorities take no action. and then alone can the price Director CAPD has the authority to look into the matter but why he has not been taking any action so far remains a moot point.
Obviously the Minister has listed a number of measures and decisions taken to bring about drastic changes in the CAPD. That is a welcome step but the question is why the department has been sleeping over the matter when it was aware of severe discrepancies leading to malpractices. If the Consumer Act of 1987 is now considered defective or irrelevant, why has it not been repealed or amended so far. Reforms in various branches of consumer items have been announced on the floor of the House. Many assurances have flowed from the side of the Government. The real question is of implementation of the decisions. The proposed reforms touch on a variety of consumer items, food grains, LPG supply and dealership, godowns, release of full quota of ration besides a slew of punitive actions for defaulters show that in what abysmal situation the CAPD has got stuck up. From Minister’s speech one gets the impression that the entire functioning of the department is in the hands of officials who turn and twist the rules. It leads one to the conclusion that the shortage of food supplies to the urban or the rural areas that suddenly surfaces is the handiwork of these cronies. CAPD comes under Service Act.
Now that the Minister has asserted on the floor of the House that far-reaching reforms will be brought about in the department, we are hopeful that it will be cleansed of the dirt that has given it a bad name. It is a progressive decision to make the authorities obtain a certificate of full distribution of food grains and atta from the Panchs and Sarpanchs before the quota for the next month is released. The complaint that Government supplied food grains are sold in black market and the agents have earned hefty sums of money was so far never listened to nor remedied. With the Minister himself making confessions, the public will expect a drastic change in the entire distribution system.
Since the Minister also holds the charge of Transport Department, he had to react to the anger of the members who said that the fatalities owing to road accidents were more than those happening in insurgency. It will be reminded that in these columns we have at several times drawn the attention of authorities to the worsening situation of road traffic and sharp increase in road accident fatalities. The Minister has suggested a couple of reforms or decision which may be good at their place but in reality do not answer the disastrous situation created by recurrent road accidents.
Lastly, the population of the State has taken big leap and from 26 lakh in 1947 it has jumped to 1.25 crore in 2013. This huge increase will have its impact on all walks of life. In particular, the State needs to feed this enormous humanity and let nobody starve. This becomes a pointer to what should be done in the areas of Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution so that a crisis situation is averted. In final analysis while the reforms and some decisions announced by the Minister in the Assembly are welcome, the point is that of implementing these without loss of time. The impact of these decisions should be palpable.
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