Pakistan's consumer rights problem

Anybody who has been following the recent activities of Punjab Food Authority should be left appalled and impressed at the same time. Appalled because of the kind of famous food joints and bakeries that have been caught with their pants down on account of their repelling, dirty and unhygienic kitchen conditions; impressed, because, well, there is at least one authority in this country that is actually working to protect consumer interests whereas those in the rest of the country are mostly sleeping.
Some of the renowned names recently caught red handed on account of unhygienic conditions by the PFA in Lahore include Bundu Khan, Copper Kettle, Ze Grill, Cock & Bull, Gourmet Bakers, Nirala Sweets and Shezan Bakery Production unit. But there is more to it than what meets the eye.
A closer review of PFAs activities reveals that the authority seems to have fallen short of spine in the last few months. Until a few months ago, the PFA could even take on the big boys from multinational and other major corporations. These included the not so famous recall of dairy Omung of Engro Food Limited from territorial jurisdiction of the PFA because the milk was found to be "misbranded and substandard" by the authority.
Sources say that the PFA has also become unresponsive to consumers complaints and those filed by consumer watchdogs. It has confined itself to spot checks, fines and closures of small to mid tier food joints, whereas the focus on the recall and other penalties that require scientific efforts to curb substandard products by big corporations has been lost.
Anyway, the fact that PFA is the only food authority in any province in the country deserves commendable mention. In Karachi, the KMC is supposed to have a food inspector. But their work is mostly limited to notices, and higher fees, without even spot checks - let alone product recalls and publicly naming and shaming of the culprits.
This brings us to Pakistan's consumer rights problem. The two major facets pertaining to consumer rights are pricing and quality. And its unfortunate that there is no major think tank or policy research institute or other civil society organisation that are striving to protect consumer interests on these accounts.
There are a few in Islamabad but their activities are nothing to write home about. There is one based out of Karachi called Consumers Association of Pakistan that has been credited to successfully lobby for consumer protection wings in the central bank and the PTA too. But with low funding and volunteer work, it lacks the scale that is needed to spread the message across the country. In contrast, India has at least two major consumer societies - Consumer Guidance Society of India, and Consumer Unity & Trust Society (CUTS International) - and aside from that there are about 35000 active consumer rights societies working across union council levels to protect consumer interests.
What needs to be done? This column will not claim any expertise on how to build and run consumer protection and consumers rights societies. But we will maintain that the society needs to start talking about it; it cannot afford to be reactive, it needs to be proactive. Why must the society wait for a few deaths due to food poisoning?
The universities, media and civil society forums, which provide community spaces, could and should begin holding consumer rights awareness sessions where they should bring together the businesses, the regulators as well as the members from the civil society. The idea is to start talking about it; the more people talk about it, the more people share their terrible experiences, the greater the pressure on the food companies, hotels, bakeries, cafes, etc to exterminate the demons in their closet.