Sustained inflation is the incentive to adulteration of food, drinks and drugs and the use of short weights and measures to enhance profit.

The higher the prices the heavier the incentive to such criminal practices and the larger the number of persons taking to them because of the large profits they can collect quick. And we have a long record of high inflation, more or less, during the last 32 years since we devalued the rupee by 57 per cent and it came down from Rs4.75 to a dollar to Rs11 in 1972.

Everyone then began talking of the imported inflation with the prices of all imports costing more than double and the world oil prices suddenly began soaring for the first time as the Arabs began using the oil weapon against the West.

In such an environment the number of items which are of local origin as well get adulterated beginning with food and it becomes a kind of national practice as the traders act in concert.

Infected or adulterated items became very large in number and the adulterators are often backed by influential persons, the departments or officials concerned with blocking or suppressing such evil practices become more and more lax. And a number of officials profit by the thriving on corruption or criminal practices.

The latest product to be adulterated increasingly is what was earlier called mineral water and now as bottled water. By now such water distributing companies are far too large in number but the dependable products are far too few. And even they have their imitators to exploit their popularity, but consuming such water with fake labels can be dangerous. And adulteration of milk, the traditional victim, continues although several companies have come up to sell pasteurised milk in cartons. But that milk is far more expensive than the milk usually delivered from buckets.

What we get are largely items at high prices which are unsafe or injurious. Anyone can bottle anything one sells it after mounting an elaborate TV advertising campaign.

There is no equivalent to the Food and Drug Agency in the US to test the products and certify before they reach the market. What we have is a free for all. The higher the prices and heavier the demand following the TV ads the larger the incentive to adulterate.

The government collects a variety of taxes from some of the companies which produce such items inclusive of the 15 per cent sales tax, but is not anxious to protect the consumers against such varied exploitation or downright abuse.

What we need is Consumer Protection Laws which are effective and a Consumer Protection Council to oversee the implementation of such laws and the functioning of the department concerned.

Some laws are there at the Centre and the Sindh government is toying with a Consumer Protection Ordinance. But the department concerned is ineffective, as the price control department in Ramazan makes a show of regulating prices, fails and then gives it up as the price-fixers triumph over the department.

The Consumer Protection Council of the Help line headed by Hamid Maker recently held a workshop of the various stake-holders and the meeting was attended by the Sindh Ombudsman Yousuf Jamal.

He announced there he was setting up a task force or a committee to enforce the existing consumer protection laws in Sindh. The task force will have representatives of all the stakeholders represented on it.

Earlier there had been a demand for an ombudsman for consumer protection. If there can be an ombudsman to redress officials grievances, if there can be another ombudsman to prevent abuse of tax laws by the CBR, and yet another ombudsman for the banking sector then why not one for consumer protection when it can protect many millions of consumers.

The government cannot collect large taxes from trade and industry, including 15 per cent sales tax from the consumers, let the millions of consumers remain exposed to the abuses of trade and industry.

It is not enough if the government appoints one ombudsman at the Centre along with his provincial representatives. There should be ombudsman for consumer protection in the provinces as well as in the district councils.

If the government cannot prevent the usually high inflation but only under-state that it can at least save the people from the ill effects of the widespread adulteration and the diseases it breeds.

The Sindh Ombudsman spoke of not only adulteration of food, drinks and drugs but also education or the substandard education imparted at high-cost schools and the unhealthy or dangerous practices in private hospitals.

Adulterated drugs too are too many and so are their imitation and they can be too injurious to the people even when high priced. And yet the number of people seeking relief in such hospitals is large in number, as the government hospitals accommodate to few patients and half the time they have no medicines.

In addition to the adulterated food and drinks there is the commonly used packeted Supari which is injurious to the health of the people, and some of that have been found to be infected as well. The citizen in Pakistan is under assault from too many quarters and even the relief he seeks at a high cost is infected or adulterated and hazardous for health.

Provincial laws alone are not enough to protect the people against adulteration. Such products can come form other provinces. They can come from outside the country as well.

So the Customs and security agencies have to be vigilant and give stiff punishment to the adulterators. And the corrupt officials who are slack in this area or collude with the adulterators have to be punished severely.

The city governments and the local body system as a whole should be used for this purpose. After the necessary laws have been made for the purpose or existing laws suitably amended, there should be amass education or awareness campaign to make the people aware to the dangers to which they are exposed by the widespread adulteration.

The adulterators have no fear of exposure or punishment. The evil is so common and deep-rooted that every one of its practitioners feels safe. Fear of punishment has to be put into them.

Similarly, the officials concerned with the department, who are supposed to deal with the problem, too should have such fears. They should have the fear of not only losing their jobs but also forfeiture of their ill-gotten wealth, regardless of in whose name it is in the family.

At the workshop a good deal of stress was laid on the social responsibility of the manufacturers. The fact is that good companies do not make such products or distribute them. And the bad manufacturers feel no social responsibility. For them higher the prices and greater the demand, the larger the opportunity to adulterate.

As piped water do not reach many homes in the city and when it does it can be impure, and the higher cost tanker water is not much better, the people forced to buy bottled water at a higher cost. And when they find that most of the bottled water, too, is unsafe or not pure, that is too outrageous.

The right thing for the government to do now is to declare 2005 as the anti-adulteration year and step up the campaign along with making the necessary laws and setting up the right organizations as the watch dogs. The year should also be used for educating the people against evils of adulteration and make them join the struggle against the evil.

The national awareness campaign should be high spirited and cover all parts of the country and all sections of people. Once the nation is awakened and the awakening is sustained for sometime the people can look after themselves thereafter.

That is what we ought to do now, most of all to awaken the government which can make it a part of anti poverty campaign as well as the poor are the worst victims of such adulteration.