KATHMANDU: A group of market inspectors at the behest of Consumer Rights Section under the Department of Commerce (DoC) today booked 25 wholesalers and retailers in the Kathmandu Valley for violating laws over the period of six days.

The shopkeepers were booked guilty in a raid jointly carried out by the DoC, in association with District Administration Office, Department of Food Technology and Quality Control, local police, consumer rights defenders and media.

Of the 99 shops raided from October 1 to 6, at least 25 had reportedly violated the laws by not displaying the price list of goods, non-renewal of business licences and not keeping the signboard.

Statistics on the weekly market monitoring unveiled by the DoC suggest that at least four shopkeepers were not properly displaying price tags of the goods they sold.

The number of shops that failed to renew their licences and put out of sight the signboards totaled four, said Kamal Bahadur Thapa, a market inspector, at the DoC.

Similarly, during their six-day-long inspection, the authorities found at least four wholesalers and retailers guilty of running their businesses without a valid certification from the Bureau of Standard and Metrology.

Likewise, at least five of the 25 shops had been found using outmoded and counterfeit weighing-scales.

Meanwhile, the monitoring team has indicted seven food manufacturers for brazenly violating the Consumer Protection Act, 2054 BS (Section- 9). None of them had put the label on the commodities they manufactured, Thapa said.

“Not affixing a label tantamount to violating consumers' rights to information on prices of commodities, date of manufacture, expiry date, batch no, net weight, and ingredients used in producing the commodity,” Thapa said.

The market monitors also caught red-hand two stores which ran their business without having to register for VAT and Permanent Account Number (PAN), thereby evading taxes.

Thapa said the team had managed to seize a few liters of Dhara brand mustard oil, sweets, one jar of Goshaikunda brand water and soft drink manufactured by Dew whose date of expiry had long been over. The outdated goods were seized from the RS Stores in Babarmahal.

The officials also seized a small amount of spices, which were adulterated and harmful for human consumption from a store in the capital - Kamal Koushal.