Consumer rights were recognized broadly in many ancient
Hindu, Islamic and Christian religious scriptures; however, no literary work
formalized them into a concise set until the 1960s. Consumer rights in Bangladesh and the modern world owe their origin
to the consumer revolution of the pre-60s in the United States of America .
On March 15, 1962, US President John F Kennedy made a
historical speech about consumer rights as he introduced 'The Consumer Bill of
Rights' in the US Congress. Ever since, countries all over the world have
celebrated March 15 as the Consumers’ Day. However, in Bangladesh
December 24 is celebrated as the National Consumer Day since the Consumer
Protection Act, 1986 was enacted on this day by the Bangladesh Parliament.
Kennedy strongly believed that it is vital to United States ’
National Interest to ensure the welfare of the consumers, as it is the consumer
who fundamentally drives the economy. He formulated four rights for consumers, namely
the right to safety, right to choose, right to information and right to be
heard which, in 1985, was accepted by the United Nations (UN). The UN added to
this list the right to basic needs, right to representation, right to consumer
education, and right to healthy environment.
In the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 of Bangladesh , the following six
consumer rights have been recognized.
Right to Safety
As stated in the Consumer Protection Act 1986, this consumer
right is defined as the ‘right to be protected against marketing of goods and
services which are hazardous to life and property’. Specifically significant in
areas such as healthcare, food processing and pharmaceuticals, this right spans
across any domain that could have a serious impact on the consumers’ health or
well being such as Automobiles, Travel, Domestic Appliances, Housing etc. Violation
of this right is almost always the cause of medical malpractice lawsuits in Bangladesh . Every
year, it is estimated that thousands, if not, millions of Bangladesh
citizens are killed or severely hurt by unscrupulous practices by hospitals, doctors,
pharmacies and the automobile industry. Yet the Bangladesh government, renowned for
its callousness, fails to acknowledge this fact or to make a feeble attempt at
maintaining statistics of these mishaps. Bangladesh government is required to
have world class product testing facilities to test drugs, cars, food, and any
other consumable that could potentially be life threatening. It is not a
coincidence that Tata Nano sells in Bangladesh for half of what it
would cost in an industrially developed country; this being a classic case of
need for a cheap product outweighing the need for safety of self and family. In
developed countries such as the United States, stalwart agencies oversee the
safety of consumer products; the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for food
and drugs, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) for
automobiles and the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) for all other
consumer products, just to name a few. This right requires each product that
could potentially endanger our lives to be marketed only after sufficient and
complete independent verification and validation. With respect to empowering
this right completely and adequately, Bangladesh is about 50 years away.
Right to Information
This consumer right is defined as the ‘the right to be
informed about the quality, quantity, potency, purity, standard and price of
goods or services, as the case may be so as to protect the consumer against
unfair trade practices’ in the Consumer Protection Act of 1986. In the Bangladesh
market place, consumers get consumer information through two popular, yet
unreliable means, namely advertising and word of mouth. Due to this, the
consumers in Bangladesh
seldom have accurate and complete information to assess the true value, suitability,
safety or reliability of any product. Mostly we find out hidden costs, lack of
suitability, safety hazards and quality problems only after we have purchased
the product. Another right again trumpeted by our government on paper, this
right should ideally ensure that all consumable products are labeled in a
standard manner which contains the cost, the ingredients, quantity, and
instructions on how to safely consume the product. Unfortunately, even the
medicines in Bangladesh
do not follow a standard labeling convention. Unit price publishing standards
need to be established for consumer market places where costs are shown in
standard units such as per kilogram, or per liter. We, as consumers, should be
informed in a precise yet accurate manner of the costs involved when availing a
loan. For benefit to the society from this right, advertisers should be held
against the product standards in the advertisements, pharmaceuticals need to
disclose potential side effects about their drugs, and manufacturers should be
required to publish reports from independent product testing laboratories
regarding the comparison of the quality of their products with competitive
products, just to name a few. Consumer daddy is a website meant to empower the
consumers with the right to information. We do not seek or expect any support
from the government of Bangladesh
in this mission; yet, we ethically, systematically and fearlessly dissipate
consumer satisfaction information to the general public in Bangladesh . Without
websites like Consumerdaddy.com we believe Bangladesh citizens are about 25
years away from being fully empowered by this right.
Right to Choose
Consumer Protection Act 1986 defines this right as ‘the
right to be assured, wherever possible, to have access to a variety of goods
and services at competitive prices’. Competition, invariably, is the best
regulator of a market place. Existence of oligopolies, cartels and monopolies
are counterproductive to consumerism. How often have you noticed a conglomerate
of companies that lobby the government to compromise consumer rights? Our
natural resources, telecommunications, liquor industry, airlines have all been
controlled by a mafia at some point. Coming from a socialistic background, tolerance
of monopolistic market forces are ingrained in the blood of Bangladesh Consumers.
It is not very often we can say we are going to switch the power company, when
we have a blackout at home! Interestingly, even micro markets such as the fish
vendors in particular cities have known to collude to drain the bargaining
power of the consumers. In any size, any form, or any span, collusion of
companies selling a similar type of product is unethical, less illegal. We
estimate that Bangladesh
has about 20 years more of stride to empower our citizens fully in this right.
Right to be Heard
According to the Consumer Protection Act 1986, ‘the right to
be heard and to be assured that consumer's interests will receive due
consideration at appropriate forums’ is referred to as the right to be heard. This
right is supposed to empower Bangladesh
consumers to fearlessly voice their complaints and concerns against products
and companies to ensure their issues are handled efficiently and expeditiously.
However, to date the Government of Bangladesh has not created a single outlet
for the consumers to be heard or their opinions to be voiced. There are several
websites that strive to do this, and the underlying mission of Consumer daddy
is to ensure that the voices of the consumers are heard by the corporate world.
At the Consumerdaddy.com website, consumers can upload criticisms and file
complaints. Each criticism filed will slightly lower the overall score of the
product being criticized, and each complaint will be independently evaluated by
an investigator from the Consumerdaddy.com website. Consumerdaddy.com gives the
consumers the benefit of doubt always, in that their voice is heard over that
of the company. We, at Consumerdaddy.com, strongly believe that a consumer is
always right, and that customer is king. If a consumer makes an allegation
about a product, the onus is on the dealer, manufacturer or supplying company
to disprove that the allegation is false. In other words, the consumer is heard,
and the burden of proof rests with the company. Feeble attempts have been made
by the government to empower our citizens with this right, and we believe we
have 10-15 years more to go on this route.
Right to Redressal
The right ‘to seek redressal against unfair trade practices
or restrictive trade practices or unscrupulous exploitation of consumers’ is
defined as the right to redressal in the Consumer Protection Act 1986. The Bangladesh
Government has been slightly more successful with respect to this right. Consumer
courts such as District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forums at the district
level, State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commissions and National Consumer
Disputes Redressal Commissions have been established through the consumer
protection act. Each of these consumer grievance redressal agencies has
fiduciary and geographical jurisdictions to address consumer cases between
consumers and businesses. Consumer cases less than 20 lakhs are heard in the
district consumer forum, between 20 lakhs and one core are heard in the state
consumer court and cases more than one core are heard in the national consumer
court. On paper these sound nice; but hold on before you rejoice. Once started
as the guardians of consumer protection and consumer rights in Bangladesh , these
courts have today been rendered ineffective due to bureaucratic sabotages, callousness
of the government, clogged cases and decadent infrastructure. Very few of the
district forums have officials appointed in a timely manner, and most of them
are non-operational due to lack of funding and infrastructure. Estimates put
the open legal cases in Bangladesh
at 20-30 million, which will approximately take 320 years to close. With the
legal system in this manner compromised, consumer cases that form mere civil
litigations will be pushed down the bottom of the priority list. We estimate
that Bangladesh is 10 years
behind in effectively ensuring this right to every Bangladesh consumer.
Right to Consumer Education
The right of each Bangladesh citizen to be educated
on matters related to consumer protection and about his/her rights is the last
right given by the Consumer Protection Act 1986. This right simply ensures that
the consumers in Bangladesh
have access to informational programs and materials that would enable them to
make better purchasing decisions. Consumer education may mean both formal
education through school and college curriculums and also consumer awareness
campaigns run by both governmental and non governmental agencies (NGO). Consumer
NGOs, with little support from the Bangladesh government, primarily
undertake the ardent task of ensuring this consumer right around the country. Bangladesh is 20
years away from ensuring this right empowers the common citizen consumer.
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