Possibly it is in Bangladesh you will always find a tense, common everywhere is, Present Perfect Continuous Tense, which means, the execution of the event has taken place and it is still in a continuum and did not stop. Not going far back, I start only since 2004. If we consider it started in 2004, it started very well. The Daily Star covered a big story in 2004 showing what kind of food is being adulterated with what kind of color and chemicals. It also showed pictures. The Link is here: http://www.thedailystar.net/magazine/2004/11/01/cover.htm. In that article, The Daily Star concluded this way ….
“ ……. Obviously consumer rights protection has to be made popular and effective. The CAB (Consumers Association of Bangladesh), the only private organisation working in this arena, has been lobbying for the last ten years for an effective law that would enable the government to prosecute the crime of food adulteration. The law titled Consumers Rights Protection Act, which was basically drafted by CAB, has already been approved in principle by the cabinet. "The file is now lying with the Commerce ministry from where it will go to the Law ministry and then it will be examined by the parliamentary committee before it is finally approved by the parliament and made into an act," informs Quazi Faruque, general secretary of the CAB. Faruque is hopeful that fighting adulteration of food will be a lot easier once the proposed act comes into effect………….”
As par the news above, the law has been drafted and then it was lying with Commerce Ministry. In August 2005, almost a year later, as par newspaper clips, it is found that, DCCI made an initiative to knock government in this issue. The World Trade Review has an article on this. An excerpt from the same looks like this:
“……Speakers at a roundtable urged the government to enact the proposed Consumers Rights Protection Act immediately. Only a proper law can protect the consumer rights, the experts observed. … The Dhaka Chamber of Commerce of Commerce and Industry (DCCI) organised the roundtable titled "Protection of Consumer Rights" in Dhaka with Acting DCCI President Manzur-ur Rahman Ruskin in the chair. ……. Director of Bangladesh Standard and Testing Institute (BSTI) M Safiqur Rahman stressed the need for a strict law to replace the existing laws immediately to protect the consumer rights…”
So, again in 2005, we notice that. Consumer Rights Protection Act is still in the womb of Commerce Ministry. Lately, in this recent time, On February 07, 2009, as par The New Nation, we come to know that:
Industries Minister Dilip Barua has underlined the need for modernisation of Bangladesh Standards and Testing Institution (BSTI) to expand markets of Bangladeshi industrial products at home and abroad…… Dilip Barua said the government has issued the Consumers Rights Protection ordinance recently to protect consumers rights….”
Finally our honorable minister of Industries has mentioned that the government has issued Consumer Rights Protection Ordinance….. www.bdlaws.gov.bd is a wonderful website where the laws and ordinances are enlisted and you can search any specific law out of here. I have visited the site and found that our caretaker government has approved the Consumer Right Protection Ordinance on October 13, 2008. Now its on the current parliament to pass it as a law. I hope, since that point, we can expect a rigorous enforcement of the law to reduce our customer dissatisfaction. Dear brothers and sisters, we are having our time ahead when we have to be keener on searching where the bad manufacturers are spoiling our foods or other consumer goods. The complete Consumer Rights Protection ordinance can be seen here and an indexed view is here. I request you all to read it thoroughly so that we know what rights we have from the naughty manufacturers or traders.
An ambitious issue is that the Industries minister Dilip Barua has mentioned about modernizing BSTI in his above mentioned speech, what would be the logical consequence after the law of Consumer Right Protection is finalized. We show our gratitude to the honorable minister for saying this and at the same time, I urge to all consumers of Bangladesh, not to forget that, our Industries Minister has committed to modernize BSTI, and we must keep the issue alive until BSTI is grown at its desired level to ensure consumers’ welfare at optimum level.
