The Department of Legal metrology is enforcing the laws of Weights and Measures for protecting the interests of consumers. On the enactment of the Standards of Weights and Measures Act,1976 and the Enforcement Act,1985, the provisions were made applicable not only to the transactions of trade and commerce, but also to the measurements needed for Industrial Production and Protection.

ORAGANISATIONAL CHART OF LEGAL METROLOGY

To ensure the accuracy of the weights and measures and weighing and measuring Instruments used in the above fields, the officers of the department verify and stamp them initially and periodically. They conduct frequent inspections and surprise visits to ensure the use of correct weights and measures, so as to prevent their fraudulent use, ultimately to ensure that every consumer get his due for the money he parts with.

The Department is also regulating the sale of commodities in packages at a price exceeding the retail price thereof, apart from ensuring that the packages bear the prescribed declarations to give precise and useful information to the consumers.

To achieve its objective, as it has a direct bearing on the price rise, the department activated all the executives to spread their inspections of fair price shops and mandal level stockist points, market yards, rythu bazaars, covering remote villages and tribal areas to protect consumers from traders. As a pro-active measure, the departmental officials weigh the commodity brought by the tribals and apprise them of the weight of the product brought to the market, thereby, the exploitation of the tribals by unscrupulous traders and middlemen is eliminated. With a view to ensuring remunerative prices to the farmers for paddy, groundnut and maize, the department is actively associated in this massive operation in ensuring correct weighment at the farm produce.

During the financial year 2005-2006 (up to January-2006), a total number of 3.23 lakh establishments were covered for verification and stamping. The inspections and surprise checks have been conducted on Fair Price Shops, MLS points, petrol pumps and traders and 36,576 prosecution cases have been booked. An amount of Rs.12.12 crores has been collected (Rs.7.90 crore towards stamping fees, Rs.4.52 crore under compounding fee and other miscellaneous fee).

Against the total Revenue of Rs.10.91 crore collected by the Department, Rs.6.35 crore has been incurred on salaries and other items of expenditure for the year 2005-2006 (up to the end of December-2005)

The Department is getting revenue to the State’s Exchequer by way of verification and stamping fee as well as compounding fee. A statement showing the revenue collected, expenditure incurred by the department, and cases booked during the last (5) years is given below.

Year	Total No.of Cases Booked	Total Revenue Collected	Total Expenditure Incurred	Surplus Revenue
2001-2002	19,031	12,60,54,141	6,22,85,000	6,37,69,141
2002-2003	57,454	13,44,24,920	6,77,70,000	6,66,54,920
2003-2004	53,137	11,89,04,659	9,20,71,000	2,68,33,659
2004-2005	58,307	13,05,66,119	8,18,38,505	4,87,27,614
2005-2006(up to Jan-2006)	36,756	12,12,53,712	6,35,00,000	5,75,53,712

ISO 9001 2000 CERTIFICATION

To enhance effectiveness of the Department, in the area of operation of Legal Metrology, the Department has initiated measures for obtaining ISO 9001-2000 Certification. Modernization of Standard Laboratories in a phased manner is being contemplated.

USER CHARGES

The Department of Legal Metrology collects Compounding Fee from the erring traders. This Compounding Fees is ploughed back into the Department for modernization of the Department so that consumer protection is more effective. With these user charges, the Department has procured 38 mobile testing laboratories equipped with modern standard balances. Each laboratory has the following equipments:-

1. 50 Kg Digital Standard Balance.
2. 20 Kg Digital Standard Balance.
3. 2 Kg Digital Standard Balance.
4. 200 g Digital Standard Balance.
5. 5 Litre Test Measure.
6. Auto meter testing equipment.
7. 2 meter Tape measure.
8. 2 litre and 1 litre capacity measure.
9. Vernier Callipers.
10. Screw Guage

For the first time in the Country, the Department has procured a mobile crane for verification of weigh bridges. This crane would help in arresting malpractices in weigh bridges.

S.NO.	Category	Existing Sanctioned Strength
1.	Manual Assistants	97
2.	Maistries	38
3.	Inspectors	91
	Dist. Inspectors	46
5.	Asst. Controllers	18
6.	Regnl. Dy. Controllers	7
7.	Joint Controllers	-
8.	Addl. Controller	-
9.	Jr. Asst.,	29
10.	Typist	15
11.	Jr. Steno	5
12.	Attenders	156
13.	Drivers	13
14.	Chowkidars	60
	Total	619 including other staff