Buying sweets for Diwali? Watch the weight, please

Weights and measurements dept team visits 4 sweets shops as part of drive; finds two of them using unverified weighing scales; issues notice to them; 49 cases registered in last one week for this offence

Hardly anyone can resist the temptation of sweets during festivals, especially Diwali. But as demand rises, so do the chances of being shortchanged. To prevent customers from getting cheated at sweet shops, the weights and measurements department of the State government has launched a drive ahead of Diwali, as part of which it conducts surprise checks at such shops. On Thursday, of the four shops that it checked, two were found to be violating the rules of keeping verified weights and weighing balances and displaying the certificates.

The team of weight and measurement department visited four shops in and around Stadium area-Mohanlal S mithaiwala, Bapalal Gotawala, Gopi Annakshetra and Kandoi Bhogilal Mulchand (right opposite the Stadium). The checks continued from morning till evening. This Mirror correspondent accompanied them to all the shops.


They started with Mohanlal S mithaiwala. There they saw a customer stepping out with sweets. They took him inside and got the items weighed again. While the quantity was fine, they found that the electronic weighing balance had not been verified. The certificate of verification has to be displayed prominently, which had not been done at the shop. Even the weights that they are supposed to keep had not been verified. The 1 kg weight had been procured in 1990. A case was registered and the shop was issued a notice for failure to get the verification done and display the certificate. A similar case was registered against Bapalal Gotawala, a sweet and farsan shop. Even there, the weighing scale and weights had not been verified. The shop was issued a notice.

The other two, Gopi Annakshetra and Kandoi Bhogilal Mulchand, were found to be complying with all rules.

DL Parmar, Controller, weight and measurement department in Gandhinagar, said, "We started this drive ahead of Diwali as this is the time when the purchase of such items increases. Hence, there are more chances of them being cheated. We hold surprise drives to prevent malpractices and to ensure compliance of rules by traders."


The drive which began a week ago will continue till Diwali. GD Parmar, in-charge controller, Weights and measurements department, said they are also checking if the shop owners comply with Gujarat Legal Metrology and Packaged Commodity Acts.

Maximum violation of weight verification

According to the department, in the past week since the drive was launched, 49 cases have been registered against shops for failing to get verification of their weighing scales and weightss, eight for failure to display the verification certificates, three for not keeping weights for comparison, which include two on Thursday, one for giving lesser quantity than what has been charged for and 16 others, which include against hawkers and pastiwallah.