PESHAWAR, Jan 31: The politicians, journalists, civil society members, traders and industrialists should join hands to protect the rights of consumers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, said Network for Consumer Protection chief executive Nadeem Iqbal.

Addressing a seminar here on Thursday, he said that consumer courts were operating in various districts and it was duty of the consumers to register complaints against all those, who were exploiting them.

Referring to the government claims, Mr Iqbal said that under the provincial industries department the consumer redress mechanism was going to further strengthen.

He stressed the need for appointing a special judge under the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Consumer Protection Act to hear the cases of consumers and redress the public complaints exclusively.

Mr Iqbal hoped that regular meetings of Provincial Consumer Council would be held according to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Consumer Protection Rules 2007. Civil society at provincial and district level should play a role to build trust of consumers in those bodies, he added.

He said that consumer protection council would determine, promote and protect the rights of consumers. “The district consumer protection council shall have seven members and one chairman from health department, police, food controller, president of local chamber of commerce and industry, industry development officer, civil society member and one from voluntary women organisation,” Mr Iqbal said.

He said that the network was executing a project, funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), on activation of the consumer redress mechanism in three districts of the country including Peshawar, Rawalpindi and Islamabad.

Mr Iqbal said that they had already trained more than 50 lawyers in Peshawar on consumer protection laws. He added that in case of any complaint with regard to power and gas those lawyers could be contacted for filing a case in the court.

“It is unfortunate that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which is one of the first provinces to make legislation on consumer protection in 1997, is yet to implement the law,” he said. —Bureau Report