To,
1) Secretary,
Ministry of Consumer and Food Supply,
Govt of India,
Krishi Bhawan, New Delhi, 110001
Min-food@nic.in; Secy-food@nic.in
2) Secretary, Commerce and Industry Ministry,
Govt of India,
Udyog Bhawan,
New Delhi 110107
Email: wio-commerce@nic.in
3) Chairman/Secretary
Competition Commission of India,
9th Floor, Office Block - 1
Kidwai Nagar (East),
Opposite Ring Road
New Delhi: 110023, India
cci-chairman@nic.in
4) The Secretary General, Advertising Standards Council of India,
717/B, AURUS Chambers,
S S Amrutwar Marg,
Worli, Mumbai 400018
contact@ascionline.org
Subject: Commodity industry is following unfair trade practice, Misleading advertising, over
charging for the products in bulk sale, taking advantage of MRP Act and looting consumers.
Sir,
Ours is an NGO named Akhil Bhartiya Grahak Panchayat, having branches in more than 230
districts of India and we are working for the Consumer Protection, Education and bringing awareness
among consumers. Our volunteers are grass root workers and without taking any financial help from
Govt running the organization with people’s participation.
Sir, recently we have carried out survey of daily used commodity goods such as Toothpaste, Tea, Coffee, Toilet Soaps, Washing soaps, Washing Powder, various creams and cosmetic items etc.
Multinational companies and commodity industry (FMCG) is confusing the consumers by way of
falls and misleading advertisements, selling same goods in different rates for different size of
packages and following unfair trade practices by introducing bulk packaging sales with increased
prices.
The industry is taking benefit of Maximum Retail Price Act and printing unrealistic, unfair and unjustified prices on the
packages and giving falls promises of sale of goods with 10% to 50% more/free on actual size.
Sir, these FMCG companies are targeting customers along with big mall owners and by
misleading advertising i.e. printing full page misleading advertisements in daily news papers and attracting middle class and higher middle class consumers. In these ads they are claiming that rates are less, discounted etc. But actually the rates are far more than the small packets. By confusing customers and by packaging techniques with non standard weights packaging most of the company are extracting more amounts from consumers. Due to non standard weights packaging customers is not in position to compare
the prices of different products.
As per our survey we compare the selling rate of small packs and big packs of same
companies and same products and find that per kg/litre rates for same product is higher for bulk/big packet
thana small packets and this act of FMCG companies is unfair trade practice.
The rates are
more than double the small pack.
Please see following chart which is self explanatory and also we
have taken photographs (attached herewith) of the small as well as big packs having same month of
packing.
From table it is clear that these companies are doing unfair trade practice and by misleading
advertisement they are fooling consumers with the support of big malls. Every mall is keeping big
packets and also clubbing 2 to 6 packs for sale and actually these companies are providing them such
products to loot the consumers.
Jointly malls and these FMCG companies are literally looting the
consumers.
These are only few products but almost every product and most of the companies are looting the
consumers.
Hence it is requested to conduct thorough market survey for all the products and if required Akhil
Bhartiya Grahak panchayat is ready to help Govt for the same. After thorough inspection of sale
record of these companies, recover their unfair income due to unfair misleading sales of last 10 years.
It is further requested to amend the MRP Act and introduce the product manufacturing cost printing
and protect the rights of consumers.
Enclosed : Photographs of products
Thanking you,
Yours faithfully
President,
............. District/Talu
