Govt intensifies market monitoring targeting festivals

By Laxman Kafle,Kathmandu, Sept. 24: The Department of Commerce, Supplies and Consumer Protection (DCSCP) has intensified market monitoring targeting the festival season to control sale and distribution of inedible foodstuffs and black marketing.

Although the Department has been monitoring the market regularly, it has said that the monitoring is more focused on daily essential items during festivals.

 Director General of the Department Tirtharaj Chiluwal said that the Department has advanced market monitoring by mobilising a dozen teams inside the Kathmandu valley.1

 The monitoring activities has been intensified by preparing Festival Targeted Intensive Market Monitoring Procedures-2080.

 Intelligence team also mobilised

“We are moving ahead in market monitoring with the concept of 10+2. Under this concept, ten integrated teams have been mobilised in market monitoring and other two intelligence teams have also been mobilized in the market,” he said.

 According to him, in normal conditions two teams would monitor daily, but now 12 teams have gone to separate places to monitor dozens of business establishments each day.

 He said that they have a target that one team will monitor at least 10 firms and shops a day, he said.  

 The intelligence team will, especially, conduct the inspection in wholesalers, warehouses and production houses which helps to control the tendency of creating artificial shortage of goods by overstocking in the warehouses, Chiluwal told The Rising Nepal.

 According to him, employees involved in the team will not be in official uniform. The representatives belonging to the team will inspect the wholesalers and warehouses as customers or in any other form according to their needs, he said.

 In the market monitoring team, the representatives from Department of Commerce, Supplies and Consumer Protection along with Department of Food Technology and Quality Control, Inland Revenue Department, Nepal Bureau of Standards and Metrology and District Administration Office, among others, are also included.

 He informed that the monitoring has been intensified to control the sale of adulterated and date-expired goods that may occur during the festival.

 The Department has focused on food items, vegetables and fruits, mini marts, pharmacies, fish and meat stalls, tobacco and alcohol, dairy products, clothing shops, cosmetic and sweet shops.

Consumers are forced to be cheated by businessmen as there is high demand for daily essential goods. During the festival, businessmen in the market engage in black market, price increase, low quality food labeling.

 Fine up to Rs. 300,000 to a firm

According to him, the monitoring is more focused on the food, clothing and vehicle ticket counters because they are overcrowded and consumers can be cheated.

 He said, “During the monitoring, if we find businessmen and firms engaged in irregularities, we will take action, and we also thank those who practice good business.”

 The monitoring teams have monitored above 115 firms and shops in the last five days inside the Kathmandu Valley. They monitored around 19 business firms of the Kathmandu Valley on Friday while 33 firms on Thursday.

 Chiluwal said that the Department has fined the wrongdoers during the inspection from Rs. 5,000 to Rs. 300,000.

 He said that a firm involved in direct selling of goods in Kathmandu Valley has been fined Rs. 300,000 on Friday after the monitoring team found irregularities.

Besides, the Department has been monitoring the market outside the Kathmandu Valley in an aggressive manner in collaboration with various authorities, including District Administration Offices, provincial and local governments, Chiluwal said.

The authority has been given to the chief of the local administration through the Ministry of Home Affairs to conduct market monitoring, he said, adding that the role of local administration is vital to control black marketing at the local level.

For strengthening market monitoring across the country, the Department has appointed market inspection officers for all District Administration Offices and also trained them to enhance their capacities in monitoring and follow the rules while inspecting the market.

He said that the Department would cooperate with local administration to strengthen the monitoring activities across the country.

He said that mutual efforts were being made among the federal, provincial and local governments to make the market compliant by discouraging traders to engage in unhealthy and irregular business.

 Stating that the consumers should be more aware to make the market clean by controlling unethical practices, he asked the consumers to inform the concerned authority if the traders cheated them.