Educating Consumers: Need of the Hour

Abstract

Though consumerism is in its infancy stage in India, yet there are some consumer organizations doing praiseworthy work. Today consumers are harassed everywhere. It is difficult to get quality goods at reasonable prices in shops, to get work done at government offices, to get competent services from doctors, lawyers or contractors, or even to get anything done through elected representatives. We tend to blame it all on our corrupt political system and inefficient bureaucracy but rarely try to find out our role in this deterioration. If all the citizens of the country know about the legal protection available to them to safeguard their interest, then no additional effort is required to educate them. For educating consumers, we need a lot of literature in all languages to be distributed to consumers, to make them more and more alert about their rights. Even school children should be taught about various facts of consumer protection as part of the curriculum. Also, the support of the mass media is needed to boost the good work being done. Newspapers and magazines, which run complaint columns, can be of a great, help to the consumer movement. Last but not least, it is the consumer himself who is to protect his own rights, for if consumer is not willing to pursue his remedy, nobody can help. Therefore, consumers have to assert and protect themselves from unscrupulous traders, unethical professionals and irresponsible public undertakings.