Govt plans to bring new amendments to CPA in Budget Session

Kochi:Government is planning to bring amend-ments to the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 giving it “more teeth,” in the upcoming Budget Session of Parliament, Minister for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Ram Vilas Paswan said.
“Government is propo-sing to amend the Consumer Protection Act as there are so many issues… We want to give more teeth to the consumer laws,” he told reporters here last evening. The matter will be placed before cabinet and it is expected that new laws will be in place, the minister said.
“We have written to the state governments also. If there is a consensus, it can be passed this year itself,” Paswan added. A Consumer Interest Protection Autho-rity is being planned which will be delegated with puni-tive powers.
The authority will have the powers to suo motu launch proceedings. As per the present set up there are three levels of courts- district, state and national level to look into consumers issues. This causes lot of delays. “We are trying to simplify the proceedings, trying to make the process easy by having no revocations”.
There are also plans to have a National Common Market system which will fix a uniform price for essential food articles. Giving an example, the minister said there is “mandi” system in Punjab where farmers have no choice, but to go through the system. (PTI)