Rampant cheating of customers with faulty weighing machines

Kurnool: Taking advantage of the lack of proper supervision by officials of the Weights and Measures department, the vendors are robbing the consumers with faulty weights or weighing machines.

Ranging from wholesale, retail merchants to roadside vendors and waste paper purchasers, all of them are looting the common man. Recently, a consumer, B Srinivas Reddy, a resident of Telcom Nagar, has purchased one kg of apples from a roadside vendor just outside of C Camp Rythu Bazaar on a faulty weighing machine.

The customer, who became suspicious, weighed them again at a shop near his house. However, he was shocked to find 100 gm less. Another consumer, Amos Kumar of Satyanarayana Colony, purchased a few monthly household items weighing one kg each at the Nehru Nagar in the I-Town locality. After weighing them, the family members found 50 grams less for each provision.

The dissatisfied consumer was said to have again weighed the provisions at a nearby shop on electronic weighing machine. To his disbelief, he found the same measurement weighing 50 gm less. This is the complaint from not one or two known consumers but thousands of them across the district, who alleged that they were being robbed off using faulty weights.

It is not only in the case of provisions, fruits or vegetables, consumers are being robbed at petrol pumps, milk booths and at many more places. A source revealed that several shop vendors are still using uncertified iron weights. In fact, the vendors have to get their weights certified from the office of Weights and Measurements department.

After certification, the staff would issue a certification copy with seal on the weights. It is also learnt that the Legal Metrology department has banned the usage of iron weights and replaced them with electronic weighing machines.

However, several vendors are not following the rules of the department with which the common man is being victimised in the hands of the vendors. The department is having its inspector-level officials at Kurnool, Nandyal, Adoni and Dhone.

Despite the raids carried out by the department, the staff are looting the innocent public by using faulty weights which has become very routine. Speaking to The Hans India, Inspector Jilani of Weights and Measurement department said that they were conducting raids on the shops
regularly.

Recently, raids have been conducted on jewellery shops and booked four cases, he stated. Out of four cases, three were imposed penalty with a fine of Rs 30,000 each and one case is pending. The goldsmiths were asked to use 1 gm of gold weighing machines but they are using 10 mg machines.

The usage of 10 mg machine was banned from April 2011, he stated. He also said that they conducted raids on the fertiliser godowns after receiving complaints. During the raids, Jilani said that they have come across several glaring differences compared to the actual quantity when they raided some of the fertiliser godowns.

By V Narendra Kumar