Grahakjago (S.K.Virmani)©

A couple of posts have been written in this blog on unethical business practices of Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam Ltd (DHBVN), a PSU Discom in the State of Haryana. Some of the articles from the relevance point of view for the present post are listed below:  Corona pandemic in India vs unfair business practices of Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam (DHBVN) a State-run DISCOM PSU under Govt. of Haryana for generating inflated bills and pressurising/ misleading consumers to pay the bills much prior to the due date of payment during lockdown  http://skvirmani-jagograhak.blogspot.com/2020/05/corona-pandemic-in-india-vs-unfair.html   Trust-Based Meter Reading by Haryana DISCOMs like DHBVN and UHBVN- How much accurate electricity billing  http://skvirmani-jagograhak.blogspot.com/2020/06/electricity-billing-and-trust-based.html   हरियाणा में नए बिजली कनेक्शन देने में सर्विस केबल देने के नाम पर क्या भ्रष्टाचार चल रहा है ? Is there a scam in providing new electrici...

whether the charges for SMS alert fee being deducted by Punjab National Bank are ethical?             This blog had earlier published following articles on SMS alert fee being charged by banks specially State Bank of India (SBI) to draw the attention of the Bank, Regulator namely Reserve Bank of India  (RBI) and Ministry of Finance. The links to the articles are given below for an easy access.  1. Do the charges for SMS services being charged by State Bank of India  are ethical ?      http://skvirmani-jagograhak.blogspot.com/2014/04/do-charges-for-sms-services-being.html 2. Unethical business revenue by banks on account of charging SMS Alert Services      http://skvirmani-jagograhak.blogspot.com/2014/08/unethical-business-revenue-by-banks-on.html 3. Need for intervention of Reserve Bank of India to put a stop on the unfair business practices of the Commercial Banks on a/c of SMS Aler...

GST has been introduced in the country with much fanfare issuing several political statements. One of the statement being heard from the politicians of the ruling party was that all consumers are excited with the implementation of GST. Even the Prime Minister termed it as Good and Sweet Tax. GST is on a basic principle of One Nation One Tax and it has got two elements i.e CGST (Central GST) and SGST (State GST). Prior to introduction of GST, we have VAT system in country. In my view, there is no basic difference as both are with cascading effect at each point of sale i.e the additional tax on value addition and in both the tax systems, the input tax gets credited to the registered dealer by adjusting with output tax. It simply means if the registered dealer has paid an input tax of Rs. 100/- on a commodity and he sells the commodity to next buyer by charging tax at Rs. 105/-, the dealer has to pay the additional tax of Rs. 5/- only. Such facility was available in both terminology...

Are you shopping at https://www.myntra.com/ ?  Have you ever checked your bill? It has come to the notice that www.myntra.com has been selling the products online by announcing the sales discount and sales discount has not become part and parcel of marketing activities. However, it is also adapting to unfair business practicse as surprisingly myntra.com seems to be flouting the regulations concerning MRP.  Maximum Retial Prices (MRP) are always inclusive of sales tax and all other charges and as per rules, no product can be sold at a price higher than MRP. It is seen that Myntra.com is charging VAT on the MRP without looking into the fact that the prices after the discount on MRP are also inclusive of VAT and other charges. This is illustrated as below from an invoice raised by myntra.com Invoice No. INV_1503073779_29 dtd. 17/05/2017 1. MRP:                    ...

Complaint on alleged Deceptive Trade Practices of BSES Rajdhani Power Ltd. An article titled "Whether Electricity DISCOMs in Delhi adapting to Unethical Business Practices?" was posted on this blog on 15th July 2016. A consumer has reported about the unethical business practices of BSES Rajdhani Power Ltd. (BRPL) resulting into financial loss due to excess billing amounting to Rs. 965/-. He was advised to raise the complaint before the company i.e BRPL. However, the consumer did not get any response.  However, the DISCOM reported their version against a tweet duly tagged to BSES. The response received from the DISCOM was analysed and found that the DISCOM is violating the regulations of Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC) on billing and since the bills are raised through the software, it is expected that all the consumers are being issued bills in violation of regulations of DERC. All the affected consumers irrespective of the amount (whether it is Rs....

I have been a subscriber of MTNL Dolphin mobile connection. The choice of having MTNL connection was basically that the PSUs operator cannot adapt to unfair trade practices. However my belief shattered for the first time when it came to the notice that BSNL was charging migration fee for migrating from one plan to another. As per regulation of TRAI (an authority in India to protect the interest of telecom consumers) the migration fee is not allowed to be charged. BSNL was violating the same which made me to believe that when it comes to the talk of unfair trade practices, PSUs are not lagging behind. BSNL was charging the same till December 2011. Surprisingly BSNL withdrawn such unethical charges being charged from consumers only after intervention of TRAI. Failed to understand why intervention of TRAI was required. Had it been charged inadvertently, the same would have been withdrawn immediately when it was brought to their notice. Coming back to the topic of MTNL (Mahanagar T...