You may pay your monthly cable fee, but it doesn't buy you trouble-free viewing. Forget interruptions due to power outages, a certain cable operator won't even allow you to watch what is available in peace, superimposing ads on the lower half of your screen no matter what the channel, obliterating your view of the news and sports scores tickers.
The same goes for just about everything else: compensation for flights delayed or cancelled; high taxes, but no paved roads or reliable water supply.
Consumer rights are a joke here, a fact which helps businesses and the government to get away with shoddy goods and substandard service. An almost-militant labour force only compounds the problem.
A cause and consequence is that we do not believe in differential services or pricing. The essence of a market-based economy is that the consumer has the choice in a regulated market. Consumer choice is a right. It's up to a consumer to decide whether they want to pay differential pricing or a service charge. Five long years ago when there was a half-hearted debate about the levying of a service charge, the Beed argued in a number of columns that businesses and entrepreneurs should decide for themselves ('Service charged' in #18, 'Playing hard to get' in #31, and 'Essential acts' in #35, all Economic Sense).
A month ago, the very same industry-people, probably trying to find a way around the new players in parliamentary politics, decided to introduce a service charge, with a quiet share going to the owners and probably a bit trickling back to the Hotel Association of Nepal. Another cartel, another syndicate the consumers need to put up with.
In a country where a disappointed consumer has nowhere to go, to pay for service regardless of quality is ridiculous. Yes, it's traditional to pay a 'service charge' to the meter reader or the cop who tries to pull you over right before dasain, but our euphoric labour leadership wants to extend this to every single human interface that exists for a service-healthcare, education, construction, anything.
We have embraced the market economy, the government is not only cutting back on new businesses, it is even thinking of exiting fields in which it is in business.
Consumers will be paying more for services rendered by private enterprises, whether for telecommunications or electricity. It is therefore more important than ever that the regulatory framework governing the rights of the consumer are strengthened. Consumer rights must balance out the domination of service owners and providers. People like Sudeep Shrestha of Kantipur have been working hard to this end. We need more people like him.
