Cartels are everywhere

Today Govt via CCI has disclosed that all
The major tyre manufacturers have a cartel and fined them. Whether tyre, beer, cement or cables carteling is everywhere and anti-consumer. CCI took 10 years to fine tyre makers. These crooks consider is cost of doing business do what they have to and move on. Can we all demand jail term for promoters and directors in case of carteling? Also this is such an anti consumer issue but consumer affairs department is now where to he found. They along with DPIIT and CCI should form one unit to fight this menace. Other than that consumer should just prepare to get looted one industry each month.

The Competition Commission of India (CCI) on Wednesday imposed monetary penalty on five major tyre manufacturers, including Apollo Tyres and MRF, for "indulging in cartelisation by acting in concert to increase the prices of cross ply/bias tyres variants sold by each of them in the replacement market and to limit and control production and supply in the said market."

A penalty of Rs 425.53 crore was levied on Apollo Tyres, Rs 622.09 crore on MRF Ltd, Rs 252.16 crore on CEAT Ltd, Rs 309.95 crore on JK Tyre and Rs 178.33 crore on Birla Tyres, the CCI said in a statement.

"The tyre manufactures had exchanged price-sensitive data amongst them through the platform of their association, namely, Automotive Tyre Manufacturers Association (ATMA), and had taken collective decisions on the prices of tyres," the fair trade regulator noted.

The five tyre manufacturers and ATMA were held guilty of contravention of the provisions of Section 3 of the Competition Act, which prohibits anti-competitive agreements including cartels, during 2011-2012, it said.

"The Commission also found that ATMA collected and compiled information relating to company-wise and segment-wise data (both monthly and cumulative) on production, domestic sales and export of tyres on a real-time basis," the CCI added. more

cartelisation is a big issue

cartelisation is a big issue of controlling the market. In the Local Circles, the issue falls under Consumer Connec and must be raised and discussed so that it comes to the notice of the regulator, the Competition Commission of India who have the power of investigation into cartelisation and merger of companies leading to monopoly. It must also be remembered that the cartelisation is a form of cheating the consumers who are unidentifiable. The unfortunate part is that the money so collected by CCI from such companies is taken as 'penalty' and not returned to unidentifiable consumers who are cheated. Such money is transferred to the consolidated fund of India instead of passing on to the Consumer Welfare Fund under Consumer Protection Act. The job of the regulator like CCI is to protect consumers and compensate them for the losses caused by the trade and industry through the money so recovered. However, the consumers may consider allowing 2-3% of the penalty amount being retained by the Regulator for meeting with its expenses on account of the case fighting in the CCI but not pay into the Consolidated Fund of India. Views of the participants are solicited.

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Sabyasachi Gupta

Even after having a Ministry for Coordination - we do not find any coordination between Government's own units. CCI did not form a "cartel" with the Income Tax Inspectors, CBI and GST Inspectors - otherwise - they would have found much more information. more

Feb 04

Prithvi Nath Bhargava

It is easy for the Govt. to make a policy but, it is very difficult to enforce the policy to the advantage of the consumers. more

Feb 04

Sunil Sharma

This is not US. more

Feb 03

V A SRINIVASA RAGAVAN

With due to regards to all concerned, I wish to suggest that to face the challenge of manufacturers' cartels, consumers must organise themselves into a buyers' group for every major products such as cement,steel, tyre, electricals,etc under the guidance of Ministry of Consumer Affairs to demand better price and terms for them. It is not very difficult to plan and achieve this through IT infrastructure. It will be similar to what Central Govt has already successfully done for their own procurement through Govt E-Marketplace (GeM) portal. more

Feb 03

Subramanian Ashok

Cartelisation is more or less a standard practice in our country. In fact its there with political parties also. For example, You don't scratch my back and I won't scratch your back is an unwritten rule followed by the political parties, otherwise this kind of relentless looting the country can't happen. All big and sensational scams pop up for a while and then get buried under the ground forever. The role of media is also bit obscure, most of them blatantly indulge in yellow journalism and some take pride in doing HMV service?? Its a seller's market and poor consumer is the sufferer. more

Feb 03

K C Rana

Even in sabzi/fruit mandi, there is cartel what to talk about property or transporters or illegal mining. India is full of mafia with the active support of politicians n police. The whole system of governance has rotten over the last 5 decades. more

Feb 03

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