Sandesh- Mastnath Journal of Management (ISSN: 0975-6515) Vol. 8, No. 1-4, January- December 2013. pp. 53-62 Quarterly Indexed & Refereed Journal of SBMIMSAR, Baba Mastnath University, Rohtak
Awareness as an Instrument to Utilize Consumer Rights: A Consumer Protection Perspective Ishwar Mittal Research Scholar, Institute of Management Studies & Research Maharshi Dayanand University, Rohtak, Haryana. (
[email protected]) Dr. Ravi Kumar Gupta Professor, Department of Management Studies Vaish College of Engineering, Rohtak, Haryana. (
[email protected]) Abstract Kautilya’s monumental treatise on state- craft 'Arthashastra’ dealt with the subject of consumer awareness and protection of his interests. But the fact of the matter is that the consumers are still victims of unfair and restrictive trade practices adopted by trader or manufacturer. With an enormous population along with high levels of poverty, unemployment and poor literacy levels, consumer awareness level towards their rights continues to remain low. Under the section 6 of Consumer Protection Act, there has been an effort to empower consumers by giving them six basic rights. The study aimed to analyze the consumers’ awareness and utilization of consumer rights given under Consumer Protection Act. Further, it checked the consumers’ knowledge about documents required at consumer forums to file consumer cases. The nature of data used in the present study is primary which had been collected by using a structured questionnaire. 600 respondents of rural and urban areas of fifteen districts of Haryana were sampled. Responses were analyzed by the help of Percentage, Chi- square, Karl Pearson Co-efficient of Correlation and presented by tables and figures. It was concluded that the level of awareness of consumer rights was high among the respondents. Respondents with high education level and high level of income were more aware as compared to those having poor education level and low income level. It was surprising to note that even the level of awareness of consumer rights was high but the utilization of these rights was not observed at very good level. It was inferred that respondents did not know the procedure to move to consumer forums if they had any grievances as nearly 3/4th respondents did not know the documents required for filing the complaints in the consumer forums. Keywords: Consumer Rights, Consumer Awareness, Utilization, Documents, Consumer Forum. Introduction In ancient India, consumer rights and consumer protection related references are found in a number of writings and records. Kautilya‘s monumental treatise on state- craft 'Arthashastra‘ dealt with the subject of consumer awareness and protection of his interests. It cautions the people against the exploitation of the consumers by traders and commercial establishments. It made a painted reference to the corrupt practices like faulty weights and inaccurate measures. It strongly disapproves of adulteration in essential items like food and oil and prescribes punishments for such unfair trade practices. Throughout the Middle Ages and during the colonial regime, consumer awareness in India remained very low. During the freedom struggle, with the help of agitation programmes like boycott of the British and other foreign goods, Swadeshi, Khadi movements etc. rudimentary forms of
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consumer awareness and consumer protection movement originated in India. But the fact of the matter is that the consumers are still victims of unfair and restrictive trade practices adopted by trader or manufacturer. With an enormous population along with high levels of poverty, unemployment and poor literacy levels, consumer awareness level towards their rights continues to remain low. Indian Government through Consumer Protection Act has provided some basic rights to consumers. Under the section 6 of Consumer Protection Act, there has been an effort to empower consumers by giving them six basic rights. The said consumer rights are as follows. 1) Right to Safety: Consumers are authorized to protect themselves against the marketing of the service and goods which are hazardous for the live and property. If the particular service or goods is hazardous and dangerous to the life and property, consumers must be informed and instructed clearly about the mode for use of service and goods. 2) Right to Information: Consumers have every right to be informed about the quality, quantity, potency, purity, standard and price of service or goods, with a view to protect the consumers against unfair trade practices. Adequate information should be provided to consumers so that they may choose exactly what fit in their budget, life-style and fashion. 3) Right to Choose: Consumers are authorized to get access to variety of services and goods at the competitive prices. Moreover, fair competition must be promoted so as to provide the widest rages of services or goods at the lowest and competitive price to the consumers. 4) Right to be Heard: This right is the crux of Consumer Protection Act, because under this right, consumers are assured that if something goes wrong with the consumers, their interest will receive due care in the appropriate Consumer Forum. 5) Right to Redressal: If a consumer has suffered loss or injury due to unfair trade practice or restrictive trade practice and allegations made in complaint have been proved, the appropriate Forum, where complaint has been made, will indemnify and compensate to the consumer. 6) Right to Education: This right informs the consumer about the practice prevalent in the market and what remedies can be availed of against them. For spreading this education, media, or school curriculum and cultural activities may be exercised as medium. Review of Literature Kumar and Batra (1990) indicated that most of the consumers were well aware of their rights, but only a few consumers exercised them. This practice was prevalent not because consumers were lethargic or inactive or important, but the real cause for not availing consumer rights was the unsatisfactory response of their voice and actions. Giram and Savarkar (1996) conducted a study in Marathwada region of Maharashtra State. He found that a majority of the respondents i.e. 51.33% were totally ignorant of the Consumer Protection Act‘s measures. 54.38% percent of the respondents did not known how to file a complaint. The dissatisfied consumers did not file any complaint before any District Forums because of lack of awareness about the Consumer protection Act‘s provisions. The absence of purchase document was found to be another reason for not complaining. Goel (1997) conducted a doctoral study on media support to reduce knowledge gap on consumer protection among rural women. He found that majority of consumers were not utilizing their rights as consumers. Jindal (1997) pointed that consumers did not wish to go to consumer forums because they felt that it was the wastage of time and money in the courts. The study elicited that the level of awareness of consumer rights was not very good. Similar findings were reported by Joshi (1993) who carried out post graduation research work about the food purchase habits and consumer awareness of rural and urban housewives in Dharwad district of Karnataka state.
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Bhashyam (2000) examined the working of District Forums in Andhra Pradesh and the extent of consumer awareness about the provisions of the Consumer Protection Act. The study revealed that among the 295 rural respondents, 68% of the respondents were found to be aware about the act and 32% of were found to be aware of their rights as consumers. Sivaprakasam and Rajamohan (2001) revealed that the urban consumers have more awareness than rural consumers. Among the eight recognized consumer rights, a few rights are known to the majority of the urban consumers. The socio-economic factors like sex, marital status, age, educational qualifications, occupation and income have different role to play in relation to consumer awareness Kaur (2003) conducted a study in Ludhiana city on women consumers and found that more than 80% of women were not aware of various consumer rights. Very few respondents sought justice for their grievances by approaching consumer courts. 90.8% had no knowledge about essential documents required for filing complaints in consumer courts. Kaur, Dhillon, and Batish (2005) conducted a study to know the awareness of urban women of Ludhiana city. The results indicated that more than 80 per cent of women were ignorant about consumer rights. Women consumers were indifferent and inactive in utilization of services of consumer forums for seeking redressal for the purchase related problems. Gupta (2006) pointed out that majority of the consumers did not have a good level of awareness about the various consumer rights provided by the legislation. Himachalam (2006) conducted a comprehensive study of consumer protection in India with reference to the state of Andhra Pradesh. He examined the extent of awareness among consumer respondents regarding their rights as consumers. 57% of consumers were aware of all aspect of consumer rights through various media. Seshadri (2006) showed that most of the consumers were aware of various rights and legal remedies open to them against deficiency of service and defective products. While it was seen that majority respondents preferred to file complaints in consumer court, negligible of them actually did so. Special Correspondent (2006) of ‗The Hindu‘ newspaper published a report that consumer protection act was not effective. The 48,732 consumers surveyed in 138 districts in different States said the redress mechanism was simple but not very speedy and economical. It was reported that eighty two percent of the consumers were not aware of the CPA and 66 percent of consumer rights. Most were not aware that they could represent themselves in consumer courts through a simple complaint. Gambhir (2007b) brought out some useful facts about consumer protection administration. The consumers were reported to be not much aware about consumer rights and CPA. Gokilavani and Nageswari (2007) conducted a comprehensive research on awareness of consumer rights among the women consumers. The researchers concluded that majority of women consumers were not found aware about consumer rights. Gupta (2007) attempted to bring to light the awareness of consumers in rural as well as urban areas. It had been found that 82% of the respondents were aware about their rights. The urban consumers had better awareness than rural consumers. It was interesting to note that majority of urban consumers had good knowledge of redressal machinery but rural consumers were lacking behind it. A survey had been conducted by Priyanka and Zeenia (2007) among the educated and uneducated respondents to know the awareness about consumer rights. Of the 400 respondents selected, 68 from the uneducated people and 34 from the educated people were found to be not aware about their rights as consumer. Checking the awareness of the consumers Kalpana and Natarajan (2008) found that even though people are aware of consumer protection measures available in India but the usage of the measures is poor. Uppal and Chawla (2008) studied level of awareness amongst consumers regarding legal measures taken by the government in Punjab. It was revealed under the study that 61.25% rural and urban 55
consumers were aware of various legislative measures, nevertheless a major portion of consumers were not aware about the legal measure. Shekhar, Ahlawat, and Singh (2009) revealed that the majority of women showed low level of awareness regarding consumer rights and low extent of utilization of consumer rights. Positive association has been observed between awareness and utilization of consumer rights. Siwach and Dahiya (2009) found that most of the urban women (62.50%) had fairly good knowledge of consumerism followed by about 35% having medium knowledge and 2.50% having low knowledge. Whereas, a complete reverse trend was observed in rural women i.e. only 7.50% had high knowledge followed by 75% having low knowledge and about 7.50% had medium knowledge. Agrawal (2010) concluded in her study that despite a plethora of laws and rules the status of consumers is deplorable. There are several drawbacks in many laws. The implementation of many laws is faulty. Surekha (2010) exposed the weakness in the consumer protection movement due to lack of awareness. To take the consumer movement further the consumers themselves have to unite to fight for their rights. Tiwari and Prakash (2010) concluded by pointing out that there is a lot variation in the level of awareness among the rural/ urban consumers. While purchasing products and hiring services, women consumers faced numerous problems. Uppal and Rani (2010) critically examined the extent of awareness in rural and urban area. The study revealed that awareness among the consumers regarding their rights is lacking. It also shows that the overall awareness is low among consumers but it is comparatively very low among rural consumers. Research Methodology The present study is empirical and descriptive in nature which is based on empirical evidences based on data collected. The nature of data used in the present study is primary which had been collected by using a structured questionnaire. A survey method had been used to collect the data. The questionnaires were filled up by 600 respondents which were the natives of rural and urban areas of fifteen districts of Haryana. Districts were randomly selected and respondents were selected on the basis of convenience sampling. In the present study, awareness and utilization of consumer rights and knowledge about documents at consumer forums were analyzed by the help of Percentage, Chisquare, Karl Pearson Co-efficient of Correlation and presented by tables and figures. The present part of study aims to find out the consumers‘ response about consumer rights and consumer forums. Keeping this in view, the following objectives was formulated: To analyze the consumers‘ awareness and utilization of consumer rights given under Consumer Protection Act. To check consumers‘ knowledge about documents required at consumer forums. Data Analysis and Interpretation Demographic Profile of the Respondents The demographic characteristics of the total sample of 600 respondents were analyzed in terms of age, gender, place of residence, education, family‘s monthly income and occupation. The details of these are given below and the findings are represented in Table 1.
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Table 1: Demographic Characteristics of Respondents Demographics Frequency Proportion of Sample (%) Up to 30 Years 385 64.2 30-50 Years 177 29.5 Age Above 50 Years 38 6.3 Total 600 100 Male 303 50.5 Gender Female 297 49.5 Total 600 100 Urban 397 66.2 91 15.2 Place of Semi Urban Residence Rural 112 18.7 Total 600 100 Illiterate 5 0.8 th Sr. Sec.(up to 12 Class) 69 11.5 Graduate 195 32.5 Education Post Graduate 212 35.3 Professional Degree 119 19.8 Total 600 100 Below 5,000 Rs. 47 7.8 5,000- 15,000 Rs. 133 22.2 Family‘s Monthly 15,000- 40,000 Rs. 251 41.8 Income Above 40,000 Rs. 169 28.2 Total 600 100 Student 186 31.0 Unemployed 70 11.7 Government Service 60 10.0 Occupation Private Service 229 38.2 Self employment 50 803 Labour 5 0.8 Total 600 100 Source: Primary Data
Awareness and Utilization of the Consumer Rights The Indian consumer is becoming more aware these days about his rights. Full credit may be given to various sources of media to spread awareness among consumers. For the better protection of consumers in market place, it is important to be aware about consumer rights but the more important is utilization of consumer rights. Many times it was observed that consumers neglect the malpractices of traders even if they are aware. For the present study, respondents were asked about their awareness of consumer rights and if they utilized these rights. Responses recorded from consumers are presented in table below.
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Table 2: Awareness and Utilization of the Rights of a Consumer Awareness of Consumer Rights
Utilization of Consumer Rights
Frequency
Percent
Frequency Percent
Aware
469
78.2
Always
Not Aware
131
21.8
Sometimes 370
61.7
Total
600
100.0
Never
158
26.3
Total
600
100.0
72
12.0
Source: Primary Data
Table 2 explained that 78.2 percent respondents were found aware about the rights of a consumer while 21.8 percent respondents were not found aware about the rights of a consumer. Further, it explained that 61.7 percent respondents sometimes utilized these consumer rights while 12.0 percent respondents always utilized these consumer rights. 26.3 Percent respondents never utilized these consumer rights. Significance of Demographic Variables on Awareness and Utilization of Consumer Rights Chi-square test was applied and table 3 is obtained to find out whether any significant difference existed between the demographic factors and awareness and utilization of the rights of a consumer. Table 3: Awareness and Utilization of Rights of a Consumer across Consumers’ Demographics Awareness Utilization Demographics df Calculated χ² p-value Ho df Calculated χ² p-value Ho Age 2 4.513 .105 Accepted 4 8.395 .078 Accepted Gender 1 .316 .574 Accepted 2 .118 .943 Accepted Place of Residence 2 1.257 .533 Accepted 4 2.392 .664 Accepted Education 4 16.785 .002 8 11.541 .173 Accepted Rejected Family‘s Monthly Income 3 7.895 .048 .815 Accepted Rejected 6 2.948 Occupation 5 9.377 .095 Accepted 10 19.005 .040 Rejected Source: Researcher’s Compilation
Following null hypotheses were tested from above statistics: Ho1= Consumers‘ demographics have no significant difference in awareness about the rights of a consumer. Ho2= Consumers‘ demographics have no significant difference in utilization of consumer rights. Ho1:- The null hypothesis Ho1 was partially accepted by chi square test when applied at 5 percent level of significance. It is to note that the chi-square significance (p-value) is >.05 for four variables, so there is no statistical significance of awareness about the rights of a consumer and their age, gender, place of residence and occupation. Accordingly, p-value of two variables is .05 for five variables, so there is no statistical significance of utilization of consumer rights and their age, gender, place of residence, education and income. Accordingly, p-value of only one variable is .05 for five variables, so there is no statistical significance of awareness of the documents required for filing consumer complaint to consumer courts and their age, gender, education, income and occupation. Accordingly, p-value of one variable is
