Source::
The Forum for Protection of Consumer Rights- Nepal (FPCR-N) has urged the government to make arrangements for the smooth and ease of supply and distribution of daily essentials to the consumers during the 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, the important role of saving the lives of citizens from the 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.
The 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 and creating of an artificial shortage of essentials.
According to him, the FPCR-N has, through a press release on Sunday, strongly called for a crackdown on black marketing in all the seven States and also for making the supply of daily essentials smooth. The Forum has called for a proactive role of the local people's representatives for the management of local markets as per their constitutional responsibility in such an 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 take responsibility by coordinating this task.
