How much? Packet par likha hain!

Deceptive MRPs and you

With all the other things that you need to get done on any given day, your grocery shopping happens like a regular chore – you either send a list to the local kirana store or move around with a trolley in a supermarket. While at it, most of you do not really realize that you are regularly paying a bit more, and sometimes a lot more, to your grocery supplier, because you did not make that extra effort to ask about the price or some reduction on the maximum retail price (MRP) printed on the packet. Why? Perhaps because you believe the MRP to be the last word on the price? In that case, wait till you know better.

Associate Professor, Kamala Nehru College, University of Delhi

Convenor, Consumer Club, Department of Commerce

Mostly, you assume that MRP is the final maximum rate at which a product can be sold to you, all because it is printed on the packet. And you believe that the MRP is the right price to pay – after all, some official in some office in some part of the country is looking after some regulation that has been made by some authority to ensure that overpricing does not cheat a consumer. It is only sometimes that you discuss with