Legal Metrology officials crack whip on erring merchants

 ​Mahbubnagar: Mahbubnagar Legal Metrology Department in coordination with the district administration has embarked on a 45-day drive to curb malpractices in measurements.

Teams comprising officials of Legal Metrology Department and district administration have been formed to check the fraud in wholesale and retail outlets. The teams have started inspecting the malls, hotels, chicken outlets, vegetable markets, agriculture market yards, petrol bunks and wine shops, according to officials. 

So far, the officials have booked 32 cases and imposed penalty on the erring vendors. “We have embarked on a continuous drive of checking the kiran shops, malls vegetable and agriculture markets, etc. We are inspecting the establishments. We have booked 32 cases,” said G Ravinder, Inspector of the Legal Metrology Department. 

The officials found that in most cases the merchants had been using “stones” instead of weighing machine. Some of them are also using faulty balances and deceiving the gullible customers. Even in super markets and malls, the packed goods contained less than stated amount. “Now-a-days people prefer to go to malls and super markets. Taking advantage of this the mall owners are adopting deceptive tactics and packing less quantity than quoted on the packets. We are taking very serious note on such tactics by malls and booked many cases on such erroneous mall owners,” Ravinder said. 

Even in hotels, chicken shops, and agriculture markets most of them are resorting to sell products which are not hygienic and charging higher prices.  In agriculture markets some of the traders are either using faulty weighing machines or resorting to use higher weights to procure more grains from the farmers and causing them heavy loss. 

The department had taken very serious note and decided to book cases against the erroneous vendors and even penalising them with heavy fines. About 12 cases were booked. Penalties to the Rs 55,000 each in eight cases were imposed. Those found deceiving consumers with faulty weigh machines were fined Rs 35,000. As many as six cases were booked for using faulty weighing machines and the merchants were penalised with Rs. 10,000 fine each.