Consumer Education and Family Welfare
This unit tests consumer rights and responsibilities, the redressal machinery, standardisation marks and labels, and the family welfare programmes a Home Science student should know.
Rights and responsibilities
Rights under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019: safety, to be informed, to choose, to be heard, to seek redressal and to consumer education, plus protection against unfair trade practices and misleading advertisements. Responsibilities: ask for a bill, read the label, compare price and quality, use products safely, complain when cheated, avoid wasteful consumption.
Redressal under the 2019 Act
- Replaced the 1986 Act; covers goods, services and e-commerce; created the Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) to act against misleading advertisements and unfair contracts.
- Three tiers: District Commission (claims up to ₹50 lakh), State Commission (₹50 lakh to ₹2 crore), National Commission (above ₹2 crore) - limits as revised in 2021.
- No fee for filing a complaint up to ₹5 lakh; a complaint may be filed where the consumer resides or works.
Marks and labels
BIS/ISI for industrial goods, AGMARK for agricultural produce, FPO for fruit products (now largely under FSSAI), BIS Hallmark for gold jewellery, FSSAI licence number for food, Ecomark for environment-friendly goods. A label must show name, ingredients, net quantity, MRP, date of manufacture and best-before, batch, veg/non-veg mark and storage instructions.
Family welfare
Small family norm, spacing methods, ICDS (1975) for children under six and for pregnant and lactating mothers, Poshan Abhiyaan, Janani Suraksha Yojana, PM Matru Vandana Yojana, immunisation and reproductive and child health services.
Worked example
A shop sells a "pure silk" saree that burns with a paper smell and shrinks. Answer: a paper smell indicates cellulose (cotton or rayon), whereas silk protein smells of burning hair. The buyer's right to information is violated; keep the bill, send a written complaint to the seller, then approach the District Commission with the bill and a fabric sample.
Traps
- Quoting 1986 Act limits in a 2019 Act answer.
- Confusing AGMARK with ISI.
- Listing rights without responsibilities.
- Treating a cash memo as optional.