New Delhi: After successfully checking dual pricing for bottled drinking water, the government now plans to ban such practice for all packaged products, be it a packet of needles or an air conditioner.
The move will mean that a bottle of soft drink or any other packaged product of the same make will be priced universally across the country irrespective of the place and time of sale.
At times it has been observed that the same product is available for a different price at a mall or a cinema hall. And the difference too is huge.
Sources said that proposal on universal pricing for packaged products is currently being evaluated by the law ministry. If approved, it will be a major accomplishment by the NDA government to protect consumer interests. The move has been initiated by consumer affairs minister Ram Vilas Paswan.
Changes under current provisions
Sources said consumer affairs minister Mr Ram Vilas Paswan is very keen to get it implemented. He had a lot of deliberations within the ministry to find a way under the current provisions in the law as any amendment or new legislation would take time.
The consumer affairs ministry, which also fixes rules for the weight and measures departments of the states, has decided to change the rules under the Legal Metrology Act. This law makes provisions for regulating weight, labels etc. of a packaged product.
Under the proposal, no company will be allowed to fix different prices (MRPs) for identical products in all “pre-packaged commodities”, sources said.
Since dual maximum retail price is considered an unfair trade practice under consumer protection law, the ministry has got power to bring this issue under legal metrology, the sources said.
“It has been found that many companies are printing different MRPs for their products - one sold in open market and another for big retail chains. Because the retail chains want to offer discount, they are forcing companies to print a higher MRP,” an official said. Because of bulk buying, companies are also agreeing to this ‘unfair’ request of the retailers.
At the insistence of the consumer affairs ministry, beverage giant Pepsi has already discontinued the practice of dual MRP and started selling its mineral water — Aquafina — at the same MRP everywhere, be it malls, cinema halls, railway stations, airports and restaurants.
Mr Paswan had said on April 14 that dual MRP is against law and Pepsi’s decision to sell its product at one price or MRP would go a long way in ensuring that the practice is universally accepted by the industry.
