CONSUMER PROTECTION COUNCIL ROURKELA Key Issues and
Operational Areas, Major Activiities & Achivements
Operational Districts:
Operational States:
AchieveMents: A consumer organisation with a difference. Instead of rendering advisory services alone, the Council since its inception, in 1985, has been taking up issues affecting them through the consumer courts and other means and feels proud to have provided relief to crores of people. These include:
*Remedial action against short-filling of LPG in cooking gas refills; 184 Bottling Plants, of the 3 Oil Marketing Companies (IOCL, BPCL & HPCL), which were the root cause of the short-filling of LPG in the cooking gas refills have been automated, at a cost of about Rs. 300 crores, by the Ministry of Petroleum and Chemicals. The quantified loss of nearly Rs. 750 crores per year to the consumers, across the country has been taken care by this upgradation. This was due to the Original Petition of the Council, initiated in 2001, before the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (NCDRC);
*Won an important case against the Rourkela Development Authority and secured financial relief for a group of individuals, against violation of Plan and Specifications in the construction of the houses and delay in handing over the possession;
*Obtained a separate District Forum for Rourkela, though it is not the district headquarters, which otherwise necessitated the entire Rourkela population to approach the Forum, situated at Sundergarh, a place 100 kms. away;
*Rerouting of Dhanbad-Alleppey Express Train through Chennai Central;
*Campaigned against non-transferring of Excise Duty concessions (to the consumers) extended by the Union government to the industry;
*Better upkeep of the Railway coaches of Utkal Kalinga Express and other trains;
*Reintroduction of Ac Chair Car in Ispat Express and elimination of unfair trade practice by the SE Railway;
*Refunding of Booking Advance by M/s LML and APSL; and
*many more.
To educate the consumers and create an awareness, the Council has been publishing its monthly, ADVANTAGE CONSUMER, for the last 28 years.
Its website www.advantageconsumer.com, with a collection of important consumer dispute judgements of the National Commission and the Apex Court, has been serving the consumers, for the past 16 years, as a store house of information as to how the Consumer Protection Act can help the common man to redress his grievances.
The Chief Mentor, has been answering and guiding the consumers across the country, FREE OF COST, ever since the website of the Council became operational in March 2000.
The Council has redressed over 1500 individual complaints, through its own ADR mechanism.
The innovative approach of the Council, whether it be putting up huge sign-boards (way back in 1989), to educate the consumers, or filing ever class action complaint in the State Commission, Orissa, (LML and APSL cases, 1989), have remained trail blazers for others to follow.
All these had been done without any institutional funding, either from within the country or outside it.
