Same Pack, Less Information:A chocolate bar bought from an e-commerce app and the one from your neighbourhood grocery store look the same, taste the same and carry the same packaging. One thing is not the same: your freedom to choose.

At a physical store, you can flip the packet over, check the date of manufacture and the expiry date, and then decide whether to take it to the billing counter. Online, that option often disappears. Scroll through the images, read the 'description' and 'specifications' fields, and on many listings you will find no dates at all.

On the face of it, that is a denial of abasic consumer right— and the law is on the consumer's side.

It is a Right, Times Now Digital has been campaigning for: the shopper's Right to see a product's manufacturing and expiry dates before paying, online just as on any shop shelf. So is the government silent on the issue? Not really.

Times Now Digital is running a consumer rights protection campaign, asking quick commerce platforms to be fair and transparent with their customers. One of the most hazardous and unethical practices we are flagging is the failure to clearly display the manufacturing and expiry dates of perishable products, among other lapses.

We asked the biggest names in the business – Blinkit, Zepto, Swiggy Instamart, BigBasket, Amazon Now and Flipkart Minutes – a simple question: why are manufacturing and expiry dates not on your listings? Every one of them stayed silent. Blinkit and Amazon asked for 48 hours. We gave them another 48.

Still not a word, as of June 29.

Two years of directives:For at least the past two years, authorities such as the Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) and the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) have issued instructions for the mandatory display of crucial information, including expiry dates. On many platforms, those directions remain only partly met.

27 notices:FSSAI says it has issued around 27 notices to e-commerce Food Business Operators (FBOs) in recent weeks. Even so, full compliance is yet to follow. (GIVE MORE DETAILS and Attribute to notices we have in poss

The Act:The Legal Metrology Act, 2009, read with the Legal Metrology (Packaged Commodities) Rules, 2011, requires every packaged commodity to declare its date of manufacture, net quantity, retail price, and best-before or use-by date.

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