Chair on consumer law inaugurated

CHENNAI:  A chair of excellence on consumer law and jurisprudence named after the late AK Venkatasubramanian, a former IAS official and a noted consumer activist, was inaugurated here on Friday by Governor K Rosaiah at the Tamil Nadu Dr Ambedkar Law University. In his address, Rosaiah lauded the university for taking the initiative to create the chair and expressed hope that the facility would support studies, besides recommending modalities for enhancing consumer awareness. “This would facilitate improvising the functioning of the Disputes Redressal Forum and commissions and for implementing protection measures,” he said. Pointing out that the time had come to enhance skills to lessen the burden of consumers and facilitate early justice, he hoped that the chair would foster a sense of responsibility among students and research scholars to efficiently serve the society in the field of consumer law.Stating that the initiatives of the Union Ministry of Consumer Affairs to identify and include promotion of socio-economic movement to protect consumer rights were praise worthy, he said: “Setting up state consumer helpline and consumer advice centres and linking them to mediation centres in the State and union territories and networking them are welcome moves.” Vice-chancellor of the law university, Dr V Vijayakumar said the Union government had allocated `85 lakh towards setting up the chair. Similarly, the varsity had allotted Rs 9.45 lakh. Stating that a post graduate diploma course in consumer law would be launched by September, he said graduates in any discipline could pursue the course. Also, the course would be available in the distance education mode too. The chair would help enhance awareness on consumer law among the people, he said. J Vincent Comraj, Controller of Examinations, TNDALU, S Krishnaswamy, managing trustee, The Catalyst Trust and R Desikan, trustee Consumer Association of India participated.