Minister chairs State Consumer Protection Council meet
Jammu: Minister for Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs and Tribal Affairs Chowdhary Zulfkar Ali today chaired a meeting of State Consumer Protection Council to discuss the measures that need to be initiated for Protection of consumer interests with regard to education and health sector.
During the meeting, threadbare discussion was held on various consumer concerns related to health, education and other sectors including selling of books by private schools, consumer grievances redressal mechanism in case of online shopping, services provided to consumers by both government and private hospitals, classification of nursing homes and educational institutions, variation in charges of nursing homes, rates fixed and facilities provides by these nursing homes, variation in charges of clinical labs, variation in test results of various clinical labs, non-issuance of bills by some of nursing homes, sanitation issues in the hospitals and nursing homes, variation in rates of medicines of same nature at different medical stores, rationalization of teaching, paramedical staff and doctors, prosecution of cases filed by government on behalf of public business establishments, uniformity in the parking rates at outside the hospitals, business establishments, educational institutions and court premises.
The Minister, while calling for further strengthening of the Consumer Forums in the state, said that government is committed to secure the rights of the consumer besides providing them with a strong, accessible grievances redressal mechanism.
Taking note of issues pertaining to the heath sector, the Minister directed health department not to confine themselves towards services rendered by the government sector, but also focus on health care services being provided by the private sector to ensure that consumers are not exploited.
He asked the health department to review feasibility of moving the ICU in GMC Jammu to the ground floor for the convenience of the people.
With regard to education, the Minister directed education department to conduct a detailed survey of private schools and categorize their fee structure as per the infrastructure being provided to the students. He asked the members of the council to build confidence among consumers to send their wards to government institutions.
KV Correspondent
