Prices of home appliances, house ware, clothing, cosmetics, hardware, sporting goods, toiletries, toys and all such types of goods are not fixed by the manufacturing companies and regulated by the Government to the utter satisfaction of customers but are fixed by the General and departmental stores doing retail business across Jammu & Kashmir. A particular product of a particular brand is unfortunately being sold at different rates at different general and departmental stores in different cities and towns of Jammu & Kashmir but no one from the Government questions their right to impose prices of their own choice at their owns whims and wishes at the customers who unfortunately find no one to register or record their grievances for the purposes of curbing illegal profiteering. Though such retailers are liable for punishment under consumer protection act for carrying out such unfair trade practices which are rampant in more popular commercial hubs of cities likes Srinagar and Jammu and towns like Baramulla, Anantnag, Kupwara, Ganderbal etc;etc; but such unfair trade practices don’t attract the attention and intervention of even Food, Civil Supplies and Consumers Affairs (FCS& CA) department duty bound to protect the rights of customers under the Consumer Rights Protection Act. It is due to increasing official apathy that monopolies exert control over prices, and retailers at general and departmental stores use it, sensibly enough, to raise their profits above the level allowed by competition. The retailers set prices in such a convenient way that prices are above costs and they earn more than what they can earn legitimately. The monopoly by retailers unfortunately prevents the price controlling authorities of the Food, Civil Supplies & Consumer Affairs (FCS&CA) Department from checking their trends of earning unusual profits through conventional practices of illegal profiteering. The fixing of prices by retailers without a system of checks and balances in place is bringing the spending capacities of a common man on a collapsing mode.
“Failure of the Food, Civil Supplies and Consumers Affairs (FCS& CA) department to establish an efficient price control system demands an immediate intervention of the Government for the purposes of establishing an efficient price control system. In several countries prices of farm products are regulated for the convenience of the farmers and similarly there is nothing bad in it if prices of the products of general public use are regulated for the conveniences of a common man in Jammu. Better late than never and better it happens now with the spirit of improving the price control system in Jammu & Kashmir”.
There is no reason to assume that the unfair trade practices of the General and Departmental stores doing the job of retail business will go unchecked and unregulated if the Government’s price controlling authorities of Food, Civil Supplies & Consumer Affairs (FCS&CA) Department exert and assert to overcome the discrimination in the prices of home appliances, house ware, clothing, cosmetics, clothing, hardware, sporting goods, toiletries, toys and all such types of goods. Failure of the Food, Civil Supplies and Consumers Affairs (FCS& CA) department to establish an efficient price control system demands an immediate intervention of the Government for the purposes of establishing an efficient price control system. In several countries prices of farm products are regulated for the convenience of the farmers and similarly there is nothing bad in it if prices of the products of general public use are regulated for the conveniences of a common man in Jammu. Better late than never and better it happens now with the spirit of improving the price control system in Jammu & Kashmir.
