Consumer Voice :: CONSUMER RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES

CONSUMER RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES

Right to Safe Environment

For urban consumers, environment means parks, gardens, and deteriorating air and water quality. Most urban areas are bereft of any wildlife and people are unaware of the biodiversity around them. On the other hand, rural consumers rely on their environment for fulfilment of their basic needs.

The need for environmental conservation is seen as a necessary defence against deteriorating quality of life world-wide. We are all victims of contaminated food and water supply, pesticide-ridden food, adulterated milk and choking exhaust fumes emitting from vehicles. According to a World Bank report, India is being pushed back due to its high environmental costs. We lose around Rs 24,500 crores every year in terms of air and water pollution alone. If you live in a city, you must have experienced air and water pollution at some point of time. Children often fall ill due to polluted environments, it leads to increased health costs and discomfort for consumers. Valuable resources and man-days are lost due to polluted environment and living conditions. Consumers need to understand that only a safe environment can ensure the fulfilment of their consumer rights.

If we look closely at our immediate surroundings and our consumption patterns, we would find that we, ourselves, are responsible for causing environmental pollution to a certain extent. For instance, our monthly purchases include various kinds of washing detergents, toilet cleaning acids and chemicals like Harpic or Sanifresh, and a lot of non-biodegradable packaging for pre-packed food products. This leads to environmental problems like water and soil pollution, and waste disposal problems. It also shows that our consumption patterns are closely linked with the state of the environment and that environmental damage is mostly a result of irresponsible consumer behaviour.

International Standards for Safeguarding Right to Safe Environment

Consumers International (a nodal agency of consumer organisations from all over the world) has made certain guidelines for ensuring consumers' right to safe environment.

Consumers should be protected from environmental pollution by:

1. Promoting the use of products which are environmentally sustainable.

2. Encouraging recycling

3. Requiring environmentally dangerous products to carry appropriate warnings and instructions for safe use and disposal.

Promote the use of non-toxic products by:

1. Raising consumer awareness of alternatives to toxic products

2. Establishing procedures to ensure that products banned overseas do not enter national markets.

3. Ensure that the social impacts of pollution are minimised.

4. Promote ethical, socially and environmentally responsible practices by producers and suppliers of goods and services.

Rural consumers are invariably closer to their environment than urban consumers. Their livelihoods and way of life depend on the environment around them. Their firewood and sources of energy come from trees, manure for fields comes from livestock, water is procured either from underground water supply or from rivers, the crops heavily depend on annual rainfall, even pesticides for safeguarding of crops and storage also come from trees like neem. In short, the rural life revolves around natural resources. For them, this dependence on the environment is complete and they have a stake in its preservation, whether it is for building their houses, fodder for their cattle etc.

Right to Safety

Consumer right to safety is as vast in its purview as the market reach itself. It applies to all possible consumption patterns and to all goods and services. In the context of the new market economy and rapid technological advances affecting the market, the right to safety has become a pre-requisite quality in all products and services. For e.g. some Indian products carry the ISI mark, which is a symbol of satisfactory quality of a product. Similarly, the FPO and AGMARK symbolise standard quality of food products. The market has for long made consumers believe that by consuming packaged food or mineral water, consumers can safeguard their health. This notion has been proved wrong time and again due to rampant food adulteration in market products. Right to food safety is an important consumer right since it directly affects the health and quality of life of consumers.

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