The Goa Civic and Consumer Action Network (GOACAN) was launched on Earth Day, April 22, 2002, to take the civic and consumer rights movement forward. One of the seven campaigns of GOACAN is ‘Consumer Literacy’ which seeks to make consumers aware that they need to be alert and active. ‘Read your Rights and Write your Complaints’ is the slogan of the campaign.
Over the last 16 years, GOACAN has promoted and set up Consumer Welfare Clubs (CWC) in over 130 educational institutions. More recently, the CWC Co-ordinators have started to attend programmes on food safety, waste management and the menace of misleading advertisements. This has resulted in new activities being organised on the campus.
“After the Consumer Protection Act 2019 was enacted. the CWCs were unable to undertake any campus based activities for the last two years due to Covid. On completing 20 years, GOACAN from this academic year 2022-23 is making every effort to promote the Consumer Literacy Campaign on the campus across all 12 Talukas of the State. This year-long effort is being launched on September 8 and in 2023, this day will be observed as Consumer Literacy Day by all CWCs in Goa. Many of the CWCs will organise special awareness sessions on the Consumer Protection Act 2019 besides consumer complaints and suggestions, surveys, seminars, workshops and conferences. This academic year will also see many CWCS participate in initiatives of FSSAI and BIS for the very first time,” says Roland Martins Convenor of GOACAN.
Bemvinda Fernandes has been teaching for more than 25 years and as a Consumer Welfare Co-ordinator, at Our Lady of the Rosary Higher Secondary School, Dona Paula, she along with Leena Bhosule have been training the students over the last two years. “We had to conduct online activities due to the pandemic but the students showed great enthusiasm. As this is a higher secondary school, we often conduct talks for the students of Class 11 and 12. From talks like Teenager Consumerism and their Well-being’ and ‘Road Safety and Traffic, we also had activities like healthy salad making competition with pulses and cereals and cloth bag competition. We have planned activites for the whole year,” says Fernandes.
Simone Pereira from Dona Paula, is a student of Our Lady of the Rosary Higher Secondary School, Dona Paula. She was glad that she participated in Roland Martins’ talk in her school. “Now whenever I go shopping, there are so many factors that I look into before buying a product, something that was overlooked before. Each product has to have a date of manufacturing as well as the date of expiry and the contact of the company. I also learnt about the International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) number which is used to uniquely identify a mobile device on the network and you can search for your phone in case it is lost. I do it immediately for my family members in case their phones get stolen or lost. He also informed us about our rights as an LPG consumer and how the gas line should be inspected periodically,” explains Pereira.
Professor of Industrial Management and Human Resources Management, Dr. Raina Pinto is the Consumer Welfare Club Co-ordinator at GVM’s Gopal Govind Poy Raiturcar College of Commerce and Economics, Ponda and she feels that consumers should be aware of the products they are using especially those which go into their system. “We organised an essay writing competition for the students on the theme, ‘Consumer is King – Fact or Reality’ and a sentence completion competition on, ‘I am a smart consumer because…: We also organised Bazaar Day where the students were judged on how they packaged their goods with attention to content list, date of manufacturing and date of expiry. With information available at the click of a button, it is difficult to convince students to attend a talk especially when their attention span is now short. But once they attend, they are grateful that they learnt so many things that they didn’t know before. I feel that even if two students return home and teach their families about consumer rights, we are doing something right says Dr Pinto.
Dr Maria Fatima De Souza is the Consumer Welfare Club Co-ordinator at the Government College of Commerce and Economics, Borda, Margao but she has been involved right from 2006 when she was teaching at Government College of Arts, Science & Commerce in Khandola.
Currently teaching commerce and management, Dr De Souza has an LLB in Criminal Law and LLM in Intellectual Property Rights and a Phd in Marketing. “Right from the time we are born, we are consumers. I inform consumers about their rights especially to complain if they feel that service provided is less than promised. We should not be pretentious to be good but we have to complain to the management and give them the opportunity to perform better whether it is a service or a product provider,” says Dr De Souza.
This year, Dr De Souza organised an All Goa essay competition on the ConsumerAct of 2019. “I sometimes even give talks on ‘Digital Marketing’ at Carmel’s College, Nuvem. It is important to highlight their consumer rights as they in turn will educate their families. We recently organised a Consumer Bazaar where the students were explained their duties and responsibilities as a product provider to a consumer,” says Dr De Souza who will be organising a student made nylon rope jewellery sale for Consumer Literacy Day.
Sanjit Rodrigues, Secretary. Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs, Government of Goa is pleased with the response by the student community as their awareness levels have increased. “The consumer rights umbrella is spread now to cover more aspects and the more the awareness the more consumers are aware on what to accept and expect from the products and their quality. The action at the student level will work well,” says Rodrigues.
What kind of support does the Department provide these Consumer Welfare Clubs to make these awareness programs possible? “We provide grants to consumer clubs to activate their programmes and we also provide training sessions for the members of the Consumer cells so they can conduct talks in different institutes. There are also drives conducted on the field and we receive reports too of the complaints,” he explains.
Compared to the previous years, there is an increase in awareness among consumers. The Government of India launched the ‘Jago Grahak Jago, a consumer awareness programme in 2005. Since then, there has been a steady increase in awareness and it is good that people are aware of their consumer rights. GOACAN has proposed to observe September 8 as ‘International Literacy Day’ and as ‘Consumer Literacy Day in Goa from 2023. “I am not aware of this proposal but the department will support and partner with GOACAN,” says Rodrigues with optimism.
