Editorial
Consumer rights protection
Time now for laws to be enacted and implemented
DEMANDS for an enactment of consumer rights protection law have been made repeatedly over the last few years. Organisations such as the Consumers Association of Bangladesh have endlessly stressed the need for measures to shield people from the arbitrariness of the market and indeed from the whimsical attitudes all too often demonstrated by those who control supplies and sales of essential commodities. The time has surely arrived for these demands to take the shape of a concerted social movement in order to bring Bangladesh in line with all the consumer protection rights practised elsewhere in the world.
The fact that no priority has been given to consumer rights in the thirty seven years since the emergence of Bangladesh testifies to the short shrift that citizens are often given on issues concerning their daily lives. Meanwhile, as existing conditions so amply indicate, such helplessness has led to a point where they must be helped to get their money's worth. The irony is that while a good number of people in responsible government positions have regularly tried to explain away price rises (and some of these explanations have been outlandish as well as insensitive), hardly anyone among them has ever focused on the protection of rights that citizens are entitled to in the market. The result has been predictable. People are sold medicines beyond the sell-by date. More startlingly, the frequency and audacity with which medicine prices are raised at the chemists' leaves little question in the public mind about what is going on. One can now extend such thoughts to other areas. Food items continue to go beyond the grasp of people. Add to that the factor of adulteration and the questionable use of weights and measures, all geared to dupe the public. Regarding fares on trains, buses and launches on religious festivals, the sheer audacity with which ticket prices are raised to horrific heights is hard evidence of the travails citizens are subjected to on a regular, organised basis.
It is against such a background that consumer rights protection laws assume high significance. When the plain fact is that such laws have been in existence in countries around us -- India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia -- there is no logical as well as moral reason for Bangladesh to remain deprived of a similar law to protect its citizens from the predatory instincts of elements looking for quick and dubious profits.
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