Nodal body at WTO, more food subsidy to BPL demanded

Consumer activists on Tuesday asked the government to push for a 'nodal body' on consumer protection at World Trade Organisation and SAARC levels while enhancing food subsidy for people below poverty line, raising income tax exemption limit and strengthening investor protection mechanism.

In a pre-Budget meeting with Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha, consumer activists supported liberalisation but expressed concern that while user charges were imposed on public services, the quality of the same remained dismal.

"The government should pursue with WTO and open a nodal body, which will act as a watchdog and cater to the paramount interest of consumers. There should be such bodies in SAARC also," Institute of Social Research director D K Lahiri said.

Ram Khanna of Voluntary Organisation in Interest of Consumer Education said the public distribution should be targeted and food subsidy for people below the poverty line should be enhanced.

Emphasising on increasing the income tax exemption limit, the consumer protection groups also demanded that upper limit for provident fund deposit should be doubled to Rs 120,000.

"The earlier limit has become inadequate due to erosion of value of money and decline in interest rates over the years," Khanna said, adding there should not be any further reduction in interest rates on contractual and small savings.

Consumer Protection Council secretary B Vaidyanathan asked the government to remove the anomalies in the recent rule on taxing perks and exempt donations to consumer forums from tax.

Referring to the stock market scams, the consumer fora demanded stringent mechanism to punish erring companies to rebuild the confidence of small investors.

PTI

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