Kathmandu, March 30 :  The Forum for Protection of Consumer Rights- Nepal (FPCR-N) has urged the government to make arrangements for the smooth and easy supply and distribution of daily essentials to the consumers during the situation of lockdown.    
Welcoming the government's decision of implementing the lockdown as a preventive measure against the risk of coronavirus infection, FPCR-N called on all stakeholders, including the government, to fulfill, with all sensitivity, their important role of saving the life of the citizens from the coronavirus pandemic and at the same time protecting the rights of consumers in the present context of the lockdown.    
The Forum has also called for stopping the artificial shortage, price hike and black marketing of essential goods.    
Talking to RSS, Forum's former president and advocate Jyoti Baniya said it was appropriate for the government to enforce the lockdown to prevent the spread of COVID-19 but it should stop the black marketing taking place creating artificial shortage of essentials.    
According to him, the FPCR-N has, through a press release on Sunday, strongly called for stopping the black marketing in all the seven States and also for making the supply of daily essentials smooth. The Forum has called for the proactive role of the local people's representatives in maintaining effective coordination for management of local market as per their constitutional responsibility in such adverse situation.    
It has called for opening shops and operating mobile shops at every ward of the local levels to ensure the supply of essential goods and services to the consumers. The Forum has, likewise, called on the federal government and the state governments to also become responsible by coordinating in this task providing the necessary means and resources to the the local levels.