Dear fish buyers do you know a BIG portion of your purchase is given away to the seller right infront of you! It was one rare shopping assignment I undertook just recently at the fish market Kohima. I demanded for fresh Rohu fish to be taken out of the ice box. Well, I chose 2 medium sized and 1 small sized ones which easily scaled 2⅟2 Kgs. The scale with steel/brass pans is seen normally used by our faithful fish sellers in theDaily Market near Mao Market, Kohima. As far as I was concerned I didn’t doubt the weight – the sharp indicators of both the pans easily pointed at each other and rested at the same level as I thought so! After negotiating its rate at Rs. 100/Kg down from Rs.110/Kg, I got them cleaned and cut and paid Rs. 250/- for 2.500Kgs. Next I stopped at a grocery for some vegetable oil and put the fish on an electronic scale with no intention to measure but just to keep it. Suddenly I saw the scale reading itself and stopping at 2.046 Kg. This immediately reminded me of the 2.500kg fish I just bought. And so I rushed to the shop where I got the fish and demanded it to be weighed again- it weighed 2 Kgs 20grams. I warned the seller to give the correct measure in future and made him take the money as per the correct weight. He paid back Rs 50.00. Indeed, he nearly made this extra money for the false weight of 500 grams which is alarming! Let me add one more- a couple of days later I went to the same market to a different fish seller for the same Rohu fish. I checked for 2 hard bellied medium sized fishes out of ice box. The fishes were allowed to be weighed onthe seller’s own fashion that scaled2.200 Kgs. I asked the seller to remove the fishes and after checking the pointers at same level and emptying the pans upside down and putting them in place asked him to weigh again. Once again not surprisingly, it weighed 2.000Kgs(it scaled down by 200 grams) and I paid Rs 220.00 i.e. Rs 110/Kg (negotiated from Rs 120/Kg) by warning him to be careful in future. In fact you would see I could not negotiate the rate for the price of Rohu to that of the negotiated rate which was Rs 100/Kg a few days ago.
Therefore, I learnt 2 very significant things. One, perhaps a buyer like me could help himself by doing some checks before buying such an item as fish. Two, it seems, the fixation of rates for articles is left to the will & wish of the sellers.
However, this I would think should never be so!I am sure the concerned people in authority would do well to come down heavily upon the defaulters by enforcing stricter and more frequent checks and measures to tackle these illegal activities flourishing right under our noses. Most of all, I feel for those innocent victims who belong to the villages that are poor, uneducated and ignorant of their rights to be cheated on a daily basis by these unscrupulous cheats– shopowners and sellers!
I am sure this cheating would not be byFISHSCALE alone, but with ALL SCALES used for weighing food commodities in the Daily Market. Pray do something drastic!!!
Er V. Nakhro
A concerned Citizen
