Centre Amends the Legal Metrology (Packaged Commodities) Rules 2011 for Enhanced Protection of Consumer Rights

To safeguard interest of consumers, the Department of Consumer Affairs under Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution has omitted the Rule 5 of the Legal Metrology (Packaged Commodities), Rules 2011 defining the Schedule II prescribing the pack sizes of various types of commodities. A new provision has been introduced to indicate the unit sale price on pre packed commodities, which will allow easier comparison of the prices of the commodities at the time of purchase.

Earlier, the month and year in which the commodity is manufactured or pre-packed or imported was required to be mentioned in the package. Representation from Industry and associations in this respect has been received to remove this ambiguity.

For reducing compliance burden and removing the ambiguity of declaration of date on pre packedcommodities for consumers, the declaration has now been required to the month and year in which the commodity is manufactured for the pre packed commodities.

The provisions of declarations of MRP has been simplified by removing illustrationand providing for making the mandatory declaration of MRP in Indian currency inclusive of all taxes. This has allowed the manufacturer/packer/importer to declare the MRP on the pre packed commodities in a simplified manner.

Rules for declaring the commodities sold in pre packed commodities in numbers have been eased out for reducing the compliance burden for manufacturer /importer/packer. Earlier suchdeclarations could be denoted as ‘N’ or ‘U’ only. Now the quantities can be expressed in terms of the number or unit or piece or pair or set or such other word which represents the quantity in the package. This will remove the ambiguity of declaration of quantity sold by number in pre packed commodities.