Although a consumer movement has yet to get fully going in India, the existence of the Consumer Act has stimulated the creation of many consumer organisations across the country. The number of such organisations has more than doubled in the last few years and there are now around 800 organisations in the voluntary sector.
The consumer movement is an effort to promote consumer protection through an organised social movement, which in many places, is led by consumer organisations. It advocates for the rights of consumers, especially when those rights are actively breached by the actions of corporations, governments, and other organisations which provide products and services to consumers. Consumer movements also commonly advocate for increased health and safety standards, honest information about products in advertising, and consumer representation in political bodies.
The ideological foundation of earlier movements in other parts of the world was based on the ideas floated by people in the following concepts:
Thorstein Veblen for introducing theories of advertising and the concept of conspicuous consumption.
Ellen Swallow Richards for pioneering home economics as a science.
Herbert Hoover for demanding product testing and a need for technical standards for products.
Upton Sinclair for raising public interest in consumer protection.
Florence Kelley for leading the National Consumers League.
Ralph Nader for raising public awareness concerning automotive safety and finally according to Philip Kotler and G. Armstrong, “Consumerism is an organised movement of citizens and government to impose the rights and powers of buyers in relation to sellers.”
For the last several years, 6 September is earmarked as the National Day for the Voluntary Consumer Activists (VCAs) and Professional Consumer Advisors (PCAs). Not many people are familiar with these two terms which have been culled out of the Consumer protection movement in the country. In fact for decades, though initially at a small scale and silently yet dedicatedly, lakhs of people have been working all over the country for consumer protection in different fields including NGOs, people associated with governance, administration, judiciary, and advocacy, making small contributions for a better deal for the huge yet underestimated body of Consumers in our country.
We all are practically consumers of goods, services, and products in every age group, across societies, regions, gender, and geographical boundaries. People advocating for consumer interests have so far been humbly known as consumer activists.
In recognition of the important and significant contribution of the VCAs working as ‘consumer protection’ workers providing free services for consumer protection and consumer protection workers, providing specialist services to consumers for a fee or salary, including employees of voluntary consumer organisations, need to be readdressed as PCAs. Therefore, this breed of people is better known as VCA-PCA.
Strategically, the theme of VCA-PCA Day for this year is ‘Consumers Strength through Technologies’, that is, Consumer Protection through Technologies.
The Central Council of VCA-PCA an apex body has chosen this theme to underline the importance of various technologies in consumer protection due to the current Covid-19 pandemic and revolutionary changes in information technology. Since most debates, discussions, and seminars have gone virtual, an attempt is being made to reach people across the nation in a smaller group so that there is continuity of the consumer protection movement and acknowledgement of the effort of these sincere people in the consumer education movement.
The common consumer has suffered direct losses due to the Covid pandemic and it has had deeply damaging repercussions on the economies of the world, therefore, it is important to stress on the means of reaching out to products and services including medical, at affordable prices, without the greed of those in the supply chains, not taking undue advantages of the prevailing circumstances and situations. Thus, due to the relentless pressure from consumer activists, essential products and services were available in the market almost continuously but in certain cases, at exorbitant prices. In this prevailed atmosphere, the need for consumer advocacy and with it, greater use of technology, has increased even more, as well as the need to ensure that incompetent and unqualified people do not harm the interests of consumers by impersonating themselves as consumer protection workers.
This brings us to the point that rules and regulations have to be made to steer this profession towards qualified professionals working with integrity. As dignity increases, in the profession, chances of frauds happening in this area will decrease.
The terms VCA and PCA were first identified and adopted in the National Workshop of Consumer Organisations held on 6 September 2014 on the subject. This workshop was an initiative of the Consumer Confederation of India, the apex body of more than 400 consumer organisations of the country. Owing to this, the Government of India later selected these words in its advisory. In this meeting, a decision was also taken to constitute the Central Council of VCA and PCA as a self-regulatory body of consumer protection workers. The meeting was attended by various consumer agitators, former members of consumer commissions and forums, representatives of government-assisted consumer projects and a large number of other stakeholders.
As a consequence of the above historic meeting and the decisions taken, it has channelled into areas where for instance a large number of service providers online tell you where you can get cheap air tickets or which car will be a profitable deal for you to buy, or which insurance policy you should take. All these services are being provided by professional consumer consultants only. But unfortunately, they themselves do not know that they belong to a certain kind of profession which is directly identified as PCAs. Similarly, the list of such people is very long who have knowingly or unknowingly joined the profession of consumer protection.
The Confederation of Indian Consumers estimates, that the number of members or Presidents working, or working in various consumer forums of the country, is more than 20,000. If this includes voluntary organisations or government officials working in the field of consumer protection, then this number reaches lakhs. Arun Kumar Sharma current President of the Central Council of VCAs and PCAs says “VCA & PCA are the foundation and pillars of the consumer movement, we cannot think of a strong consumer movement without them.”
It is a fact that the maximum number of people working as Professional Consumer Advisors are engaged in corporate houses and big companies who have to deal directly with the consumer on a daily basis and where a large number of people work in customer care centres for customer information, redressal and satisfaction. Such important sectors include areas such as banks, insurance, telecom, electricity, tourism, entertainment, transportation, education, finance and health. In all these sectors lakhs of people are engaged in making efforts to satisfy the consumers or solve their problems.
The advisory issued by the Department of Consumer Affairs, Government of India, in which the State Governments were directed to prepare a list of such people and supervise them, is just the beginning. In most of the states, more effective work needs to be done in this direction. The VCA-PCA Day also has a purpose to highlight this.
The writer is Former Chief Producer, News and Current Affairs, Doordarshan & Fulbright Scholar, Syracuse University, Upstate New York.