By IANS
New Delhi : In a move to further streamline their functioning, consumer redressal forums in states would be computerised and networked by the year-end at a cost of Rs.486.4 million, Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar said Friday.
Inaugurating a two-day conference at Vigyan Bhavan marking the 20th Foundation Day of National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, Pawar said the project was in its final year and was being executed by the National Informatics Centre on a turnkey basis.
He said the government was in the process of strengthening the commission by increasing the number of members to nine from the existing five.
Though the overall performance of the forum has been satisfactory with nearly 88 percent of the 2.8 million cases filed so far disposed off, the minister said there was a need to “change the common man’s perception that the consumer fora had slipped onto the path of civil courts, making litigation long drawn out and taking several years to dispose of even cases involving small compensation”.
Pawar said it was time to change the common criticism that the orders of the consumer forum are not swift and do not hit the offenders where it hurts them most, and it is not even taken seriously by the offenders.
Though the state commissions and district forum are the responsibility of state governments to ensure that their functioning is not hampered due to lack of infrastructure, the central government has been extending liberal assistance in the form of grants so that there is no resource constraint, he said.
As part of the central government’s encouragement to consumer courts in states and districts, the government was spending liberally in providing all requisite infrastructure and has already sanctioned Rs.980 million to 18 states and Rs.474.4 million to 16 state governments as the first tranche of assistance, Pawar said.