Department of Information and Public Relations

Press Release No. 407/11

PRESS NOTE

Shillong, August 17, 2011: The Directorate of Food Civil Supplies & Consumer Affairs, Meghalaya, Shillong, in a press note issued, has informed the general public and the consumers in particular not to pay heed or attention to the directions/conditions imprinted on the body of the Cash Memo/Bills “Goods once sold will not be taken back/exchanged” as it is in contravention to Section 14 of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986. Such imprinted words are illegal and unethical trade practice which is against the law.

It may be mentioned that Section 14 of the Consumer Protection Act states that any aggrieved consumer has a right to get relief against defective goods, deficiency in service, over-charging of price including unfair and restrictive trade practice followed by the traders, manufacturers, service providers. Further, the Consumer Courts have powers to give directions to the opposite parties to repair/replace the defective goods or return the money etc, to the aggrieved consumers.

Hence, the consumer may approach Consumer Courts known as the State Commission/District Forums as may be appropriate whenever disputes arise on account of defective goods found after purchased or service that is found deficient against the payment made.

Press Release No. 409/11

CM INAUGURATES MSWAN AND MSDC

Shillong the 17th August 2011: Meghalaya Chief Minister, Dr Mukul Sangma today inaugurated the Meghalaya State Wide Area Network (MSWAN) and the Meghalaya State Data Centre (MSDC) at Shillong in the presence of the Meghalaya Information Technology Minister, Mr A L Hek, Chief Secretary, Mr W M S Pariat, Joint Secretary, Department of IT, Government of India, Mr Ajay Kumar and the Commissioner & Secretary, IT Department, Mr D P Wahlang among others.

It may be mentioned that the Meghalaya State Wide Area Network (MSWAN) built at a cost of approximately 25 crores has been designed to establish a reliable horizontal and vertical communication corridor. This will provide an integrated backbone to the state government for the implementation of various mission mode IT projects defined by Government of India and e-governance initiatives of the state government. The network will act as a single point services delivery system across Meghalaya for voice, data, email messaging and video conferencing services across various departments of the state.

A total of 55 Headquarters (State, District/Sub District and Block HQs) along with their departmental offices have been interconnected using high speed leased lines from BSNL. With this all offices will also have internet and would be able to share information amongst each other as well as deliver government services to the citizens. The Meghalaya State Data Centre (MSDC) was built at a cost of approximately 14 Crores which is the state-of-the-art. The SDC will consolidate services, applications and infrastructure of all State Government Departments to provide efficient electronic delivery of government-to-government (G2G), government-to-citizen (G2C) and government-to-business (G2B) services. The SDC is intended to provide a central data repository, secure data storage, online delivery of services, citizen information/services portal and service integration for all departments of the state. Meghalaya is the 14th State in the country to have a State Data Centre of its own.

Speaking on the occasion, Dr Mukul Sangma congratulated the IT Department for having implemented the 2 projects successfully which he felt will transform the way of life altogether especially in terms of service delivery. He said that the infrastructures should be used in the right perspective by the people and the technology should be adopted efficiently for effective governance. “We should sensitise the people to use the facility and we should prepare them to adopt the G2C concept”, he added.

He said that all government departments should conceptualise their respective e-governance programme and design it in such a way that it will benefit the people at large. He said that the vision of the Government under the National e-governance Plan is to improve delivery of Government Services to the citizens and business by making Public Services accessible to the common man through common service delivery outlets. This clearly underlines the priorities of the Government in fostering good governance.

Minister of IT, Mr A L Hek in his speech said that it should be ensured that the people are benefited from these 2 infrastructures or the whole exercise will be futile. He informed that the Government has decided to encourage setting up of IT infrastructures in the form of IT Parks and SEZs in the State. The Government has taken steps to identify suitable government land for IT Parks.

Joint Secretary, Department of IT, Government of India, Mr Ajay Kumar in his brief speech congratulated the Government of Meghalaya for being one of the States to have implemented the 2 important IT projects. He informed that under the National E-Governance Plan of the Government of India, many other e-projects will be undertaken like the Service Delivery Gateway, e-form technology, e-district project and the Mobile service Delivery Platform or the M-service which the State may avail. Others who spoke on the function were the Chief Secretary, Mr W M S Pariat and the Commissioner & Secretary, IT Department, Mr D P Wahlang.