New Delhi, April 25 Secretary in the Department of Consumer Affairs, Nidhi Khare, on Friday advised the Legal Metrology departments of states to align their enforcement rules with the Jan Vishwas (Amendment of Provisions) Act, 2023, and to onboard the eMaap portal within one month in order to extend more protection to consumers.
Addressing a roundtable conference here, she apprised the states that the revised timeline for implementation of amended Legal Metrology (Packaged Commodities) Rules, 2011 is July 1.
The Secretary advised the state authorities to prioritise effective enforcement over revenue targets, ensuring better consumer protection through improved implementation of the Legal Metrology Act and Rules.
The eMaap portal is the National Legal Metrology Portal developed by the Department of Consumer Affairs.
It aims to streamline legal metrology processes, ensure fair trade practices, and enhance consumer protection.
Khare stressed the importance of legal metrology departments in the States and UTs, which are ensuring guarantees for measurement accuracy for consumers.
Emphasising the need to have correct weights and measures, she said that India has achieved the significant milestone of becoming the 13th country to issue OIML (International Organization of Legal Metrology) certificates, demonstrating the nation's commitment to international standards.
Khare also said that the decriminalised sections of Legal Metrology Act, 2009 would eliminate barriers, foster growth of businesses and will help citizens and businesses to live without the fear of imprisonment for minor violations.
In her keynote address at the Round Table Conference on "Ease of Doing Business and Protection of Consumer Rights," the Secretary highlighted the importance of using the latest IT technology to increase efficiency and ensure proper accuracy.
Bharat Khera, Additional Secretary, Department of Consumer Affairs highlighted the importance of creating a platform for knowledge exchange and collaborative policy development. He also urged state officers to refrain from procedural violations and uphold the principles of fairness and transparency.
The Joint Controller (Legal Metrology) of Andhra Pradesh delivered a virtual presentation highlighted key initiatives such as geo-tagging and calibration of weighbridges to protect farmers.
He also emphasised on the effective enforcement of Rule 9 under the AP Legal Metrology (Enforcement) Rules, 2011 in gold/precious metals bullion trade, ongoing upgrades to fuel dispensing units with anti-tampering technology, enhancements to OVR, GVR, and MIDCO systems, simplification of the licensing process, introduction of user-friendly tools for net content checks, the development of standard operating procedures, and accurate milk procurement practices.
The representative of Uttar Pradesh informed about the best practices and the action taken by the state on E-commerce platforms and their warehouses for violations of the provisions of the Act & Rules.
He said that as many as 516 case for declarations of ecommerce websites were booked out of which 364 cases were compounded and around Rs 11 crore was recovered as compounding fees during 2024-25.
Presentations about the best practices related to Legal Metrology were also given by other states including Odisha, Punjab and Goa.
The conference was attended by around 250 participants, including Controllers of Legal Metrology from various states, and representatives from prominent industry associations such as FICCI, CII, Retailers Association of India, ASSOCHAM and PHD.
Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor