New consumer Act will provide legal support against e-comm platforms: Ram Vilas Paswan

Ram Vilas Paswan, the Union Minister of Food & Public Distribution, Consumer Affairs, in an interview with Anil Singhvi of Zee Business said that he hopes that the consumer protection Bill 2018 will be passed during the upcoming monsoon session of the Parliament. He said the e-commerce would be covered under the new Consumer Protection Act, which would provide legal support to aggrieved consumers of the online segment.

Do you think that the Consumer Protection Bill will be passed in the monsoon session of the Parliament?

Consumer Protection Bill, which seeks to amend the Consumer Protection Act of 1986 is the right of consumers of the country. First, it was presented in the Parliament in 2015 but it was referred to standing committee, after which it was sent to the standing committee for suggestions. Later, the Bill was reintroduced in the Parliament in 2017 after inserting the recommendations of the committee. But unfortunately, it could not come up for discussion and passage due to disturbances in the parliament, but I hope that it will be passed during the upcoming monsoon session. It is going to be a historical law after it is passed in the Parliament.

What is being done to control the e-commerce markets, which has propped up in the past few years? There is no place to go with the complaints related to them.

The new consumer protection Bill has 3-4 things to have a control on these e-commerce platforms like the improvement of consumer courts across the country, facility to complain about the products before it is handed over to the buyer, and empowerment of consumer protection authority among others. The consumer protection authority has been empowered to see the complaints related to the e-commerce platforms. In addition, in cases of misleading advertisements, the penalties will be slapped on the company.

The second problem is related to MRP. The problem is that shopkeepers don't want to sell the products at the rates that are mentioned on the packet. Is there any solution to this problem?

There is a solution. The first is in the form of consumer court, where the consumer can go with his/her complaints. And the second solution is available in the form of complaint centres, whose numbers have been increased from 14 to 60. Under the new Act, there are provisions that say that the license of the shop can be seized in cases of fraud.

What is the biggest thing that was done by your ministry in these four years?

Our ministry is related to poor people of the country and has been providing wheat and rice to nearly 81 crore people at the rates of Rs 2 and Rs 3 per kg respectively. Importantly, this subsidy, which stands around Rs 1.4 lakh crore, is being borne by the government. Apart from this, we have not raised the rates for these products since past five years and have decided not to increase the same till June 2019. Although, this law came into existence during the rule of UPA government but was not implemented in a full-fledged way in the country except few states. We have managed to implement the scheme across the country. In addition, we have also resolved the problems related to the public distribution system (PDS) by computerising the complete process. We have also linked 89% of the ration cards available across the country with the Aadhaar numbers of the cardholders. This linking of ration cards with Aadhaar has helped us in saving about Rs 17,000 crore till date, which was given back to the state government. Apart from this, we also have regulated pension system as well as the availability of medical facilities for the employees of departments related to my ministry.

When you are planning to introduce Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) under public distribution system.

Our government has an aim of going cashless and we feel that the DBT process is an important step. Introducing the same in PDS system will enable us to provide more cash over the minimum support price (MSP) to the farmers from whom the goods will be procured. The DBT process in PDS system was implemented on a pilot basis at three places, namely Puducherry, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Chandigarh, but faced certain problems due to the absence of a full-proof mechanism for implementation of the process. After this, we asked every state to provide a full-proof mechanism for implementation of the scheme, but no one turned up with a solution. It means that it will take a little longer time.

Can you tell the steps taken by the government to end the problems of sugarcane farmers, whose bills are not being paid by the sugar mills?

There are different solutions like in case of wheat and rice, we have said that we will be buying each and every grain that is being sold by the farmer and are increasing the number of godowns for their storage. Right now, we need godowns for storage of 6 lakh 10,000 tonne of food grains that are offered under PDS, but have the capacity to store 8 lakh tonne. In addition, we are working to increase this storage capacity by 150 lakh tonne through PG and silos. We have a separate law to tackle the problems related to sugarcane farmers under which we decide the fair and remunerative price (FRP) for sugarcane apart from this the state governments have the right to increase this FRP through state advisory price (SAP). Apart from this, every state government has the power to take an action against the sugar mills, who fails in providing the dues of the farmers within 15 days. Under the action, the state government can make the mill to pay the sum with a penalty and can also seize the property of the company who fails in paying the farmers dues after the first action of the state