Vinod Anand

IN the early sixties, W. W. Rostow (also known as Walt Rostow) an American Economist, had propounded five stages of economic growth in his Book entitled “The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto”, where he fully analysed the Rostovian take-off model. These stages are: the traditional society, the preconditions for take-off, the take-off, the drive to maturity, and the age of high mass-consumption.

India has surpassed the take-off stage many decades back. This stage indicates the interval when the old blocks and resistances to steady growth are finally overcome. The forces making for economic progress, which yielded limited bursts and enclaves of modern activity, expand and come to dominate the society. Growth becomes its normal condition. It has also gone beyond “the drive to maturity” stage that follows the take-off stage and the economy has now become sustained and it is regularly growing which has extended modern technology over the whole front of its economic activity. We have now come to the final stage of high mass-consumption and the leading sectors have shifted towards durable consumers' goods and services.

Let us briefly see the high mass-consumption stage:

It basically refers to the role of consumers (also called ultimate demanders who buy goods and services for consumption in order to have direct satisfaction as against buyers who buy to sell), and it is believed that consumers are the basic role players to sustain the economy. Consumer sovereignty is a basic term in Welfare Economics, and there is a very strong theory in this context.

Consumer sovereignty is a term which is used in economics to refer to the rule or sovereignty of consumers in markets as to production of goods. It is the power of consumers to decide what gets produced. Also, this term denotes the way in which a consumer ideologically choices to buy a good or service. Furthermore,the term can be used as either a norm (as to what consumers should be permitted) or a description (as to what consumers are permitted). Consumer is thus regarded as the sovereign in the sense that if there is no consumtion, economy can not survive.

Another connotation of consumer sovereignty is "consumerism" which means the process of realising the rights of the consumer and ensuring right standards for the goods and services for which one makes a payment. This objective can be achieved in a reasonable time frame only when all the concerned role players act together and play their roles accordingly. These players are the consumers represented by different voluntary non-government consumer organisations, the government, the regulatory authorities for goods and services in a competitive economy, the consumer courts, organisations representing trade, industry and service providers, the law-makers and those in charge of implementation of the laws and rules.

In the context of India, “consumerism" has already dominated the market and it will continue to do so in all the coming decades. For this the credit goes to the economic reforms ushered in and the several agreements signed under the World Trade Organisation. The transition will be from a predominantly "sellers market" to a "buyers market" where the choice exercised by the consumer will be influenced by the level of consumer awareness achieved.

In India, The Consumer Protection Act was enacted in 1986, which aimed to protect the consumers from exploitation. It was meant to enable the people to secure speedy and in-expensive redressal of their grievances. With the enactment of this law, consumers were made to feel that they were in a position to declare “sellers beware” whereas previously the consumers were at the receiving end and generally told “buyers beware”.

This Act postulated to establish the Central Consumer Protection Council and the State Consumer Protection Councils for the purpose of spreading consumer awareness. The various forums were set up at each district, state and national levels. There are more than 600 district forums, about 40 state commissions with apex body as a national consumer disputes redressal commission (NCDRC) having its office in New Delhi.

The provisions of this Act cover ‘products’ as well as ‘services’. The products are those which are manufactured or produced and sold to consumers through intermediaries (wholesalers and retailers). The services include transport, telephones, electricity, constructions, banking, insurance, medical treatment. They also include services that provided by professionals such as doctors, engineers, architects, lawyers, publishers etc. This act provided the cheapest remedy to the aggrieved persons/consumers by way of civil suit. In the complaint/appeal/petition submitted under this act, a consumer is not required to pay any court fees or even process fee.

Despite all this, consumer forums all over the country do not in any way protect the rights of consumers. Here are the drawbacks:
• Consumers rights are not well protected;
Producers/sellers still make full use of the ignorance of the consumers in terms of quality of the products ( in terms of hygiene and toxic nature) they sell, the prices they charge, the sale of adulterated and fake products in violation of the patent and copyright laws and regulations, sale of expired products etc; The redressals take long time, and highly delayed justice;Consumer forums have in fact no quorum in terms of the timely presence of the concerned officers, and no decorum in terms of their so-called ‘official’ behvaiour;
Hence, consumer is not yet a sovereign in the country in the real sense of the term. He/she is still a slave and a victim of what goes on from the side of producers and intermediaries. Protection of consumers is totally lost. It will surely have a highly deteriorating ultimate impact on the overall ambience of the economy.

[The writer is a commentator on public affairs and is a former professor of economics Allahabad University]

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