Make “Production Unit Price (PUP)” Mandatory on Every Product Label – A Step Toward Transparent Pricing and Consumer Protection

In today’s India, inflation is steadily reducing the spending power of the middle and lower classes. Salaried individuals, who form the backbone of our economy, are facing the harshest impact. They are compelled to pay taxes directly through salary deductions, while large corporations and wealthy businessmen often find ways to avoid or minimize taxes.

At the same time, essential goods — especially FMCG products like soap, toothpaste, biscuits, and cooking oil — are becoming costlier, not just because of inflation, but due to unchecked profit margins. There is currently no rule limiting how much profit a company can charge on a basic product.

For example:

A 45g chocolate bar sold at ₹60 may actually cost the company only around ₹10–₹12 to produce, including ingredients, labour, packaging, and marketing.

A 1-litre cooking oil bottle sold at ₹180 may cost just ₹80–₹90 to manufacture.

A ₹120 shampoo bottle could have a production cost of ₹35–₹40.

This means consumers are often paying 3 to 5 times the actual production cost, without even knowing it.

To address this lack of transparency and protect consumer rights, I propose that the Government of India and state governments introduce a mandatory “Production Unit Price (PUP)” disclosure system for all FMCG and essential goods.

Each product label should clearly display:

PUP (Production Unit Price): The actual per-unit cost incurred by the company to manufacture the product, including raw material, labour, transport, and marketing.

MRP (Maximum Retail Price): The final price charged to the consumer.

For example:

 PUP ₹12 | MRP ₹60

 

This simple addition would empower consumers to make informed decisions and compare brands fairly. It would also discourage companies from exploiting consumers through excessive markups and marketing gimmicks.

Additionally, every company’s auditor should verify the basis for calculating PUP to ensure transparency and prevent fraudulent reporting.

The implementation is straightforward because companies already calculate these costs internally for their profit and tax reports. Displaying them publicly only brings transparency to what’s already known within the system.

This reform will:
✅ Encourage ethical pricing and fair competition.
✅ Protect middle- and lower-income consumers from exploitation.
✅ Help control inflation by curbing artificial price inflation.
✅ Build trust between consumers and manufacturers.

As citizens, we deserve to know how much we are truly paying over cost. Just as nutritional values are printed for our health, price transparency must be printed for our financial well-being.

Let’s make India the first country to lead this change.
Support this petition to make PUP (Production Unit Price) disclosure mandatory on every FMCG product label.