Bearing fruit

W e are seeing some astonishingly good results of the boycott of fruit called by a local consumer rights group and publicised through social media. The rationale for the boycott was that the prices of fruit rise two- or threefold with the advent of Ramazan. This price hike, which is witnessed all over the country, seems unaffected by tall claims of the government that prices will be kept in check through an elaborate system of official price lists and unannounced raids by food inspectors.

Fed up with the fleecing at the hands of greedy wholesalers and retailers, some irate citizens decided to propose a boycott of fruit purchase by consumers all over the country. As a result, the #fruitboycott trend began on social media networks such as Facebook and on microblogging site Twitter as a mark of protest. The campaign urged people to desist from buying fruit for three days from Friday to Sunday. The boycott hopes to compel suppliers not to fleece the people during the holy month and lower prices in the open market. Even as the trend ran into trouble online where it deeply divided people, it did seem to have some effect on the ground with a large number of citizens not buying fruit on Friday and Saturday.

What is more encouraging than the response of people to this initiative is the fact that finally consumers have started to protest against the manner in which wholesalers and retailers are fleecing them while the government looks the other way. It is important for consumers to stand up for their rights. In Pakistan, we have seen consumers being regularly duped or fleeced with little recourse to justice. Aside from price hikes, many consumers complain of false claims when items are sold to them and poor quality of goods they purchase. While Punjab has consumer courts, other provinces have no such platform to take their complaints to.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 5^th, 2017.

Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.