Kathmandu, January 12

Along with the government implementing new rules related to market monitoring the number of traders paying fines has increased in the current fiscal year. The Department of Commerce, Supplies and Consumer Protection (DoCSCP) has collected a total of Rs 5.5 million in fines from traders inside Kathmandu Valley.

While inspecting a total of 720 shops inside Valley around 100 shops have been fined for not providing relevant documents and information sought by inspection officers during market monitoring in first five months of current fiscal.

The collection of fines this year has increased by Rs 1.3 million compared to Rs 4.2 million collected during the same period in the last fiscal year. As per the department, the new Consumers Protection Act 2018 has provided inspection officers the authority to levy fines of up to Rs 500,000 from traders on the spot during inspections.

As mentioned in subsection one of section 33 of the act, if there is reasonable ground to believe that unsafe goods having adverse effect or sub-standard goods are being produced or sold, or services are being provided, or any acts are being done contrary to this act and the rules framed under this act, the inspection officer may, by entering such a place at any time deemed necessary, inspect, inquire or search, arrest the person who commits such an act and hold such a person in detention for seven days with the permission of the case trying authority.

As per department, traders who were selling goods at a higher price, selling substandard goods, providing fake receipts to consumers and traders who were selling low quality products were fined by the market monitoring officers deployed by DoCSCP. Among the various reasons that traders were fined most of them were charged for not cooperating with the inspection officers during the market monitoring.