Celebrate ‘World Consumer Rights Day’ by standing up against ill practices and pledge to be aware of your rights

New Delhi, March 15: Considering consumer rights more closely and making things quite feasible for the consumers, various schemes and factors have been introduced. India considers consumer as the top priority and ensures providing relevant and significant contents to its consumers. With the aim of creating more awareness among the consumers, the world celebrates World Consumer Rights Day today.

It is an awareness day and theme for this year is 'Making Digital Marketplaces Fairer'. Several functions are being organized across the country to mark the occasion. The officials are working in providing consumer protection as the consumer protection council and consumer courts are working to protect consumer rights. Consumer Affairs Minister Ram Vilas Paswan will also preside over a function in New Delhi.

 

The day is considered as a prospect to promote basic rights of all consumers, demanding that those rights are respected and protected. It also gives people a chance to protest against the market abuses and social injustices.

On the occasion of World Consumer Rights Day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the central government was not only focusing on consumer protection but consumer prosperity as well.

In a tweet, Modi said: “Greetings on World Consumer Rights Day. The consumer plays an important role in the economy.”

 

Modi further added, “Government of India is not only focussing on consumer protection but also consumer prosperity.”

Along with the tweet, PM Modi shared a short video on the importance of consumer protection in which he said: “Consumer protection has had an important role in the country for thousands of years. It is mentioned in the Atharva Veda that there must be no wrongdoing while weighing commodities.”

“The rules of consumer protection have been mentioned in books which were written thousands of years ago. Punishment for trading in a wrong way has also been laid down,” he said.

In October 2017, PM Modi had inaugurated a two-day conference on consumer protection in the national capital wherein he stressed that stricter guidelines are in the offing to protect people from misleading advertisements.

The Union Cabinet has approved a new Consumer Protection Bill that seeks to establish an authority to safeguard consumers' rights, also has provisions for penalty and jail terms in case of adulteration and misleading advertisements by companies.

This new law will replace the Consumer Protection Act 1986, and will instead incorporate the revised 2015 UN guidelines on consumer protection. In India, besides the World Consumer Rights Day, we observe the National Consumer Day on 24th of December every year.