वीसीए-पीसीए डे - 6 सितंबर 2023 तक्षशिला लाइब्रेरी में मनाया गया
वीसीए-पीसीए डे - 6 सितंबर 2023 तक्षशिला लाइब्रेरी में मनाया गया
VCA-PCA Day - 6th September 2023 celebrated at Takshashila Library
'Consumer Protection in Digital Era' was grandly celebrated as VCA-PCA Day under the joint aegis of Consumer Welfare Society and Consumer Confederation of India. District President of CCI Shreyansh Baid while addressing the students said special for consumer protection workers This day, this time the emphasis has been on digitization in consumer protection. VCA-PCA Day is organized with grandeur on 6th September for the last several years. In this sequence, like every year, this year also VCA & PCA Day was organized across the country on 6th September. The theme of VCA-PCA Day for this year has been 'Consumer Protection in Digital Era' ie 'Consumer Protection in Digital Era'.
Before knowing about VCA-PCA Day, it is important to know what VCA-PCA is called. As such, lakhs of people are working in various sections for consumer protection, including those associated with NGOs, governance, administration, judiciary and advocacy, and people advocating consumer interests have been known as consumer activists. But according to the advisory issued to various states by the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Government of India, people working in the consumer protection sector have been identified in two areas as special identities.
as 'Voluntary Consumer Activists (VCA)' as 'consumer protection workers providing free services for consumer protection' and as 'consumer protection workers providing expert services to consumers for a fee or salary, including employees of voluntary consumer organisations' are', should be designated as Professional Consumer Advisor (PCA). Hence these are known as VCA-PCA. That is, people working in the field of consumer protection are called VCA-PCA, which includes both free service providers and paid service providers.
CCI Secretary Om Prakash Jani said that just as VCA-PCA Day is celebrated in many other professions, people associated with those professions are celebrated in the same way, to strengthen the consumer welfare campaign, to disseminate it widely, and to give consumer advocacy the highest importance. VCA & PCA Day is celebrated every year on 6 September across the country as an initiative to establish standards and to bring forward the interests of activists and professionals related to consumer protection on priority basis and to organize them and bring uniformity.
The purpose of celebrating this day is not only to emphasize the importance of the people associated with this profession, but also to ensure that incompetent and incompetent people do not harm the interests of consumers by posing as consumer protection workers and this profession. Rules and regulations should be made to regularize the sector so that while the dignity of qualified professionals working with honesty increases, the fraud happening in this sector can also be curbed.
Sudesh Bishnoi said that the words VCA and PCA were first identified and adopted on 6 September 2014, hence 6 September was chosen to celebrate VCA and PCA Day. Actually, the fight to give recognition and respect to voluntary consumer activists and professional consumer advisors was going on for years. But the biggest step in this direction in India was taken in the national workshop of consumer organizations organized on this topic on 6 September 2014. In this workshop organized on the initiative of Consumer Confederation of India, the apex body of more than 400 consumer organizations of the country, the names of VCA and PCA were adopted as an official identity for the first time. Due to this, the Government of India later selected these words in its advisory.
District Vice President Vijayalakshmi Sharma said that in the meeting of prominent consumer activists on 6 September 2014, it was decided to form the Central Council of VCA and PCA as a self-regulatory body of consumer protection workers. Apart from consumer agitators, former members of consumer commissions and forums, representatives of consumer projects running with government assistance and a large number of other stakeholders were present in the said meeting. As per the decisions taken in the meeting, extensive work was done and the Central Council of VCA & PCY came into existence on 8 April 2015. Established at the central level in New Delhi, this council is run through a Board of Trust. The Council itself took its decision and started celebrating VCA-PCA Day on 6th September. Consumer organizations supported it and VCA-PCA Day was celebrated for the first time on 6 September 2017. Since then this day is celebrated every year.
District spokesperson Mamta Singh said that there are lakhs of people in this profession and a large number of service providers online are telling where you will get cheap air tickets or which car will be a profitable deal for you to buy or which insurance policy you should take. All these are being provided by professional consumer advisors only. But they themselves do not know that they are associated with a special kind of profession which is directly identified as Professional Consumer Advisor (PCA). Similarly, the list of such people is very long who knowingly or unknowingly have joined the profession of consumer protection. Indian Consumer Confederation estimates that the number of members or presidents working or have worked in various consumer forums of the country is 20 thousand.
But the maximum number of people working as Professional Consumer Advisors are in those corporate houses and big companies who have to deal directly with the consumer on day to day basis and where a large number of people are working in customer care centers for customer satisfaction. are engaged in Such important sectors include sectors such as banks, insurance, telecom, electricity, tourism, entertainment, transportation, education, finance and health. Lakhs of people in all these sectors are engaged in efforts to satisfy the consumers or solve their problems.
Regulation is essential for quality improvement In this sector where lakhs of people are providing service, still professionalism has not got the recognition it deserves and there is no permanent recognized structure for their quality control and training. Could The situation is that most of the people who are associated with this profession do not themselves know that they are consumer professionals and their contribution in this form is very important. There is a need to effectively regulate this sector and make necessary legal regulations for the same. The advisory issued in this regard by the Department of Consumer Affairs, Government of India, in which the State Governments were instructed to make a list of such people and get them approved, is just the beginning. Unfortunately, no effective work has been done in this direction in most of the states, due to which the consumer protection sector is having to suffer the consequences. One of the objectives of VCA-PCA Day is to highlight this.
The council coordinates
The events celebrated across the country on VCA-PCA Day are coordinated through the Central Council of VCA-PCA. Apart from this, Consumer Confederation of India, the country's largest network of consumer organizations, organizes programs through its associate organizations. Consumer organization federations of various states are also associated with this campaign. Every year various functions are organized on VCA-PCA Day by a large number of consumer organizations across the country. Every year a special theme is issued by the Central Council of VCA and PCA for VCA-PCA Day. The theme for VCA-PCA Day was first released in 2017.
That year's theme was 'Consumer Protection Activists VCAs and Professionals PCAs Have the Best Solutions'. The theme of 2018 was - 'Protected Consumers Prosperous Society' i.e. Protected Consumers and Prosperous Society. Society. The theme of 2019 was 'Serving Consumer with Pride and Honor' i.e. serving the consumer with pride and respect. The theme of 2020 was 'Consumer Advocacy with Expertise and Commitment'. The theme of 2021 was 'Consumers Strength through Technologies' i.e. consumer protection through technologies. The theme of 2022 was 'Consumer Shielding Needs More Perfection' i.e. consumer shielding needs more perfection.
