Biswajit Sengupta

Age and chronic illness may have restricted his running around and some of the more rigorous activities, but they haven’t prevented Biswajit Sengupta from continuing to fight for consumer rights — something that has been his passion for close to two decades.

This septuagenarian is attached to at least five organisations working with consumer rights. But his own body — Consumer’s Action Forum (CAF), where he still serves as vice-president — is what he’s most actively involved in.

After doing his B.Sc from Asutosh College, Sen Gupta followed it up with a degree from London’s British Institute of Management in the mid-1950s. Parental pressure forced a return to Calcutta, leaving a lucrative job in London. Preferring to start a business of his own rather than being “bossed around in some company”, Sen Gupta then dabbled in many small ventures, including an iron foundry and managing the family business of aerosol products.

It was a call from Renuka Roy, who served as a member of Parliament and as a state minister, that launched Sen Gupta into the consumer rights movement in the late 1980s. The movement itself was in a nascent state then. Roy’s guidance gave him the impetus, he admits.

Sen Gupta’s work, through CAF and other such bodies that he’s been associated with, continues to focus on making the consumer aware of his rights. Only greater awareness regarding the recourses that consumers can take, feels Sen Gupta, can force stricter consumer protection laws and their effective implementation.

Among its many activities, CAF has its people placed in various city markets, to monitor transactions and help buyers with their queries. It has also conducted drives in villages, tried to educate the young in schools, and carried out surveys on the standard marking system.

Apart from CAF, Sen Gupta’s time is divided between serving organisations such as Charuchetana (an NGO teaching arts & crafts and educating underprivileged children) and the board of studies on consumer affairs at Netaji Subhash Open University and as a member of Metro Railway advisory committee.

Disappointments are there. The system is far from perfect, with consumer courts functioning the way they are, and the consumer movement barely creating the impact it should have. But Sen Gupta feels that this can change if the young are involved with the movement.

Funds, with the Centre cutting down on allocation, and other NGOs competing for them, are a problem too. But Sen Gupta is optimistic that the desire to do good can overcome all that.