The Minister said to ensure implementation of National Food Security Act more efficiently, the Centre has decided to bear 50% expenditure of food grains handling and of dealers margin money. The rules for payment of Food Security allowance to the beneficiaries, in the case of food grains is not made available to the beneficiaries, have also been finalize. On pilot basis, the Government is also working on direct transfer of food subsidy to beneficiaries of National Food Security Act, Shri Paswan added.
Highlighting proposed plans of the Government for Consumer welfare, Shri Ram Vilas Paswan said that after 360 degree review of the Consumer Protection Act, comprehensive amendments have finalised in the Act to ensure quick, inexpensive and simple redressal of consumer’s grievances, enabling e-filing of cases and not requiring personal appearance till the stage of admission, and time bound admission of cases proposed. A “Central Consumer Protection Authority” also proposed to investigate unfair trade practices; initiate class action, order recall or replacement of defective products. Provision made for product liability to enable consumers to sue for damages caused by defective products/ deficient services. Besides this a dedicated portal www.gama.gov to enable consumers to register their grievances against misleading advertisements (GAMA) has been launched. Six key sectors viz. food and agriculture, heath, education, real estate, transport and financial services have included for this purpose. The complaints lodged are taken up with the relevant authorities or the sector regulators. The consumer is informed after the action taken. In another initiatives, to provide a host of consumer services under one roof, Grahak Suvidha Kendras launched in six locations: Ahmadabad, Bangalore, Jaipur, Kolkata, Patna and Delhi on March 18, 2015. Such centres will be set up in every State in phased manner.
On the occasion the Minister also launched a mobile app enabling consumer to register their complaint against consumer products having ISI marks and quarterly news letter containing best practices of Targeted Public Distribution System.
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