Gujarat Chief Minister as Chairman of Working GroupMain focus on “protection of larger Interests of farmers as well as Consumers”

p align="justify">A meeting of Working Group on Consumer Affairs held in New Delhi today under the Chairmanship of Gujarat Chief Minister Shri Narendra Modi prepared a final draft of the recommendations report to be submitted to the Prime Minister. “The working group's deliberations mainly focused on the protection of larger interests of farmers as well as consumers both”, the Chairman and Chief Minister of Gujarat said.

This Working Group on Consumer Affairs was constituted by the Prime Minister in the Core group meeting on Price Rise held on 8th April 2010. Those who attended today's meeting of working group's member states were Shri Ashok Chauhan, Chief Minister of Maharashtra; Shri M.K. Stalin, Deputy Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu; Shri Krishna Rao, Minister of Food & Civil Supplies, Andhra Pradesh and senior officials of Government of India and state governments.

Gujarat Chief Minister said that before preparing final Draft Report for Action Plan, considerable and comprehensive efforts and discussions were carried out and all the four member states had taken keen interest and offered their valuable comments and suggestions in respect of about 55 various major issues regarding Terms of Reference, and there was broad consensus for deliberations and policy action plan.

Since issues under consideration of this working group on consumer affairs are inter-related with issues before other two working groups on agriculture production and Food and Public Distribution System, some of the recommendations of our working group would not be limited to the Terms of Reference only, Shri Narendra Modi added.

The Final Report will be presented to the Prime Minister in a very short period, he said.

Chief Secretary, Gujarat Shri A.K. Joti and senior officers from Government of India and participant States were also present in the meeting.

Gujarat Information Bureau, Gujarat