The Hindu Business Line : Consumers unite!

IT is a call specially directed to consumers in India, since they are often left in the lurch when they most need help. One looks in vain in India for the kind of sustained activism that consumers and their associations have shown themselves capable of in industrialised countries, especially the US.

Some years ago, McDonald was forced to cough up a million dollars or more to a consumer just because she was scalded by hot coffee spilling on her.

A few days ago, in New York, the power utility, ConEdison, had to pay a compensation of $6.2 million to the family a woman who was fatally electrocuted when she stepped on a manhole cover (which somehow was in contact with a live high tension wire) was awarded $6.2 million, besides being asked to establish a scholarship fund of $1 million in the class in which she was studying in the Columbia University.

There is no doubt a consumer protection law on the statute book in India, and there are some very good instances of aggressive consumer grievance redressal forums which have imposed heavy fines (which are but an infinitesimal fraction of what aggrieved consumers in the West get) and even spells of imprisonment for deficiency in service by government bodies and public and private sector organisations.

Some consumer groups too have scored notable triumphs in a number of cases, going right up to the Supreme Court in matters of paramount national interest.

The Consumer Education and Research Centre (CERC), Ahmedabad, has been a forerunner in asserting the rights of consumers through timely and effective litigation, testing of food items, pharmaceuticals, electrical appliances and other products for their adherence to standards of quality and safety and publication of an informative magazine (Insight) giving an account of its activities and findings.

The Consumer Association of India, Chennai, enjoys sizeable membership and also brings out a monthly journal, mostly reproducing known or previously published material generally of academic and journalistic interest.

Unfortunately, consumers are mostly left to fend for themselves, for want of emotional involvement in their miseries on the part of consumer groups.

The consumer groups are also seen to be squeamish in taking on vested interests and content with innocuous seminars and the like.