Come Dashain and other festivals, and the concerned government agencies become active to monitor the market to ensure that the consumers are not cheated, overcharged or the traders do not create an artificial shortage of essential goods. It is estimated that more than two-thirds of trading takes place during the Dashain and Tihar festivals in the country, when most Nepalis prefer to buy clothes and other goods, such as vehicles and electronic gadgets. Movement of people from one place to another also takes place the most during the Dashain festival to join their families to celebrate the festival, be it in the urban centres or in the rural areas. But the traders intend to make hefty profits, taking undue advantage of the consumers' buying spree. As everybody is in a festive mood, the Department of Commerce, Supplies and Consumer Protection (DoCSCP) and the Department of Transport, intensify their market monitoring only in the urban centres, where the movement of the people and trading is very high.

As usual, the DoCSCP has also intensified its market monitoring in the wake of the upcoming festivals and has also taken legal action with hefty fines against those shopkeepers and department stores fleecing the consumers. Last week, the department monitored 272 firms in the Kathmandu Valley, where two department stores in Bhaktapur and Lalitpur were fined Rs 200,000 each for cheating the consumers.

They were fined for changing the standards, price and weights of the goods in sheer violation of the rules. The department had started monitoring the firms since July. Of the total 844 firms monitored, the department has so far fined 175 firms for fleecing the consumers. It collected Rs 3.531 million in revenue from those firms that cheated the consumers.

It speaks volumes about how the groceries cheat the consumers. If the department were to monitor the market round the year across the country, the government would be collecting fines to the tune of billions of rupees. During the inspection, the department had directed all the firms to display the price list and registration certificates so that the consumers could see them easily. The concerned government agencies should also monitor all the restaurants and eateries along the highways where they sell unhygienic food at exorbitant prices. The department should also inspect the butcher shops in the valley and elsewhere, where they slaughter goats, sheep, buffaloes and fowl openly in an unhygienic and brutal condition, which can be the source of meat-related diseases and pollution of the local environment. Only healthy animals should be allowed to be sold in the market. Consumers should also heed the government notices while buying such animals. The department should also monitor the state-run fair price shops to ensure that they sell only quality food items. What the government agencies must understand is that market monitoring should not be a onetime event. It must be a routine job of the department round the year. Licences of those who cheat the consumers more than once should be scrapped without showing them any leniency as they do it deliberately to become rich overnight.

Whitefly menace

Nepal is expected to see a big slump in rice production this year due to various factors, ranging from the vagaries of the monsoon to a shortage of fertilisers. Despite predictions by the weathermen that there would be above normal monsoon rains this year, not only were the rains delayed but Nepal also witnessed extreme temperatures, causing the growing paddy to wilt in the fields. Worse still, there was no chemical fertiliser in the market, although the government had given assurances to the farmers that it would be imported in time. Now adding to the woes, the whitefly threatens to invade the paddy fields of the Tarai.

The tiny pest has infected many places of Nawalparasi East, sucking the ears of the seed-bearing paddy, ultimately destroying them. The concerned department must destroy the pests before they invade the adjoining districts. Last fiscal year the country imported rice worth more than Rs 50 billion, and the figure is expected to rise dramatically this year what with a poor harvest expected. Since India itself has been under a dry spell, its output of rice too is likely to fall. The authorities must thus secure the country's food supply in time before a shortage is witnessed in the local market.

A version of this article appears in the print on September 26, 2022 of The Himalayan Times.