Consumer affairs may soon be part of syllabus at undergraduate level

Consumer affairs will soon be a part of syllabus at all undergraduate levels irrespective of the discipline, be it traditional science or professional courses like engineering. The University Grants Commission (UGC), in its efforts to ensure greater involvement of students in consumer movement, has directed all universities to offer this course at all undergraduate levels. It has already prepared a module for the course, which is available on the UGC's official website.

The course will be aimed at familiarising students with their rights and responsibilities as a consumer, the social framework of consumer rights and legal framework of protecting consumer rights. It also provides an understanding of the procedure of redress of consumer complaints, and the role of different agencies in establishing product and service standards.

The course module has been developed with the help of experts from the consumer movement and UGC plans to include it as an elective course at undergraduate level. The course module will consist of 65 lectures for an academic year where students will appear for 100 marks paper at the end of the course.

"The Department of Consumer affairs has been taking steps to promote and protect consumer rights, as provided under the Consumer Protection Act 1986. The idea is to strengthen the consumer movement in India through creating awareness among all segments of consumers, including students. Since every students is a consumer and will continue to be a consumer for rest of his/her life, this module may be offered as an elective for students of any discipline," states P K Thakur, secretary of the UGC in the notice issued to all universities.

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