World Con­sumer Rights Day (WCRD) is an aware­ness day ob­served on March 15. WCRD was first cel­e­brat­ed in 1983 and be­came an im­por­tant an­nu­al oc­ca­sion for mo­bil­is­ing cit­i­zen ac­tion and sol­i­dar­i­ty with­in the in­ter­na­tion­al con­sumer move­ment.It is an op­por­tu­ni­ty for pro­mot­ing the ba­sic rights of all con­sumers, de­mand­ing that those rights are re­spect­ed and pro­tect­ed and protest­ing about the mar­ket abus­es and so­cial in­jus­tices which un­der­mine them.

In a mes­sage to mark the oc­ca­sion Min­is­ter of Trade, In­dus­try and In­vest­ment Vas­ant Bharath an­nounced plans for new con­sumer leg­is­la­tion and re­vi­sion of the Na­tion­al Con­sumer Pol­i­cy.Key as­pects of the new leg­is­la­tion in­clude:

�2 Es­tab­lish­ment of a tri­bunal to pro­vide ac­ces­si­ble, af­ford­able and ef­fi­cient means of set­tling dis­putes be­tween con­sumers and sup­pli­ers

�2 More re­spon­si­bil­i­ties and tools for the di­rec­tor, Con­sumer Guid­ance, to pro­mote com­pli­ance and en­force­ment

�2 En­hanced con­sumer's self-help reme­dies to in­crease the like­li­hood of con­sumers be­ing treat­ed fair­ly, and

�2 Strength­en­ing the trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty of the or­gan­i­sa­tion re­spon­si­ble for Con­sumer Af­fairs

Bharath said the Con­sumer Af­fairs Di­vi­sion (CAD) has been pro­vid­ed with the re­sources to pre­pare for an in­creased de­mand on ser­vices ex­pect­ed from its in­ten­si­fied ed­u­ca­tion and com­mu­ni­ca­tions ini­tia­tives.He said staff will be ac­tive­ly en­gag­ing in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tions in­clud­ing Con­sumer In­ter­na­tion­al and con­sumer or­gan­i­sa­tions in Cana­da, USA and Aus­tralia.

"The dri­ve to make the Con­sumer Af­fairs Di­vi­sion the sen­tinel of con­sumer pro­tec­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go is re­lent­less and there is a need for con­tin­u­ous vig­i­lance. Con­sumer pro­tec­tion is every­body's busi­ness and we in­tend to put the pow­er on your side," the min­is­ter said.

WCRD marks the de­f­i­n­i­tion of con­sumer rights, as out­lined by US pres­i­dent John F Kennedy, the first world leader to set out a vi­sion of con­sumer rights. Kennedy al­so recog­nised the im­por­tance of con­sumers as a group and gave the Amer­i­can con­sumer four ba­sic rights: the right to safe­ty, to choose, to in­for­ma­tion and to be heard. The day is or­gan­ised by Con­sumers In­ter­na­tion­al (CI), a world fed­er­a­tion of con­sumer groups that serves as the on­ly in­de­pen­dent and au­thor­i­ta­tive glob­al voice for con­sumers.

It was found­ed in 1960 and cur­rent­ly it has more than 220 mem­ber or­gan­i­sa­tions in 115 coun­tries around the world.To mark WCRD 2014, CI has launched a new Con­sumer Agen­da for Fair Mo­bile Ser­vices. The agen­da sets out the is­sues that most ef­fect con­sumers in­clud­ing the need for ac­cess to a re­li­able ser­vice, the se­cu­ri­ty of their da­ta and fair con­tracts and billing.

In April CI will present the Con­sumer Agen­da to the World Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions De­vel­op­ment Con­fer­ence, held by the In­ter­na­tion­al Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Union, where it will be call­ing on phone reg­u­la­tors and com­pa­nies to take ac­tion to stop is­sues un­der­min­ing the suc­cess of the new tech­nol­o­gy.