Islamabad: Consumer Rights commission of Pakistan (CRCP) has called attention to the effectiveness of standards enforcement as an instrument of reducing the consumer cost of various essential items and utilities. While commenting on "One Standard, one test-accepted every where," Which is the theme of world Standards Day this year, CRCP said that standards and conformity assessment programs lead to increased efficiency and a basis for interpretability and transportability, which results in reduction of manufacturing cost and ultimately consumer price.

While explaining the relevance of standards and tests with consumer cost of goods and services, CRCP secretary general Mian Abrar Hafeez said the standards and conformity assessment schemes were very effective instruments in reducing manufacturing cost and ultimately the consumer prices. He supported the proposition saying that CRCP, in collaboration with Global Environment Facility (GEF), UNDP had conducted a study on quality of gas and home appliances, which revealed that the market was flooded with substandard and low quality electric and gas home appliances. The study showed that the use of substandard home appliances added high amounts of money to the utility bills due to more consumption of electricity and gas by theses appliances. Moreover, for gas appliances such as room heaters and cooking stoves, there were no quality standards. For some electric appliances such as fans, there existed quality standards, but most of the locally manufactured fans consumed more energy than stipulated, which showed that the manufactured fans consumed more energy than stipulated, which showed that the manufacturers were not complying with quality standards. Mian Abbrar lamented that electric fans of good quality consume 80-88 Watts, whereas many brands of fans consume more that 100 Watts, which translates into high utility bills. He suggested that standards enforcement for goods and services was a viable option to reduce consumer cost.

CRCP secretary general, while deliberating on the issue of quality standards, said that Pakistan was lagging behind in formulation and implementation of standards for various essential items. He said that the Pakistan Standards and Quality Control Authority (PSQCA) had taken up the task of formulation, harmonization and enforcement of quality standards in Pakistan recently. Although the PSQCA has formulated or adopted ISO standards for 46 items including edible oils, banspati ghee, and biscuits etc., they are largely voluntary for local industry to adopt. Therefore, existence of theses standards has become meaningless for citizens, because neither they have contributed much in improvement of quality nor they have resulted in reduction of consumer cost through cost-effective interpretability and transportability. Mian Abrar emphasized that the government must address the issues of standards enforcement at priority basis to assume greater place in the global trade market and ensure safety and affordability of goods and services for consumers.