May 31, 2014
WB Govt to set up assistance bureaus to help consumers
The State Government is taking theinitiative to form Consumer Assistance Bureaus. As a Pilot Project, ten suchBureaus will be formed at different places across the state. In the future,every district will have the same facility. Initially, the Assistance Bureauswill be set up at the office of the Assistant Director of the Consumer ProtectionDepartment.
The initial offices will be set up at Khidderpore, Muraripukur, Baguihati and Noapara in Kolkata and at Bidhannagar, Durgapur, Siliguri, Islampur and Kankinara.
Ten NGOs have been asked to do the necessary work and have beenprovided with the infrastructure and other facilities. The department will holdmeetings with these NGOs every three months to monitor the work done.
The last three years had seen radicalchanges in different sectors of the society. Powered by the initiatives takenup by the Trinamool led West Bengal Government a major portion the consumersector is now aware of their rights. This has led to steady flow of complaintsat the state`s Consumer Protection Courts and the cases are being solved arealso at par with the complaints made.
With the intervention of the state, theDistrict and the State consumer forum sorted out 5579 and 2536 casesrespectively.
