E-commerce sites must now make returns policies public, says Consumer Affairs Ministry

By

Isabelle Crossley

Published
Aug 1, 2017

As National Consumer Helplines will rise from 14 to 60, Prime Minister Navendra Modi pushed the Consumer Affairs Ministry to create a better grievance redressal mechanism.

Last week, the Consumer Affairs Ministry told both consumer product and e-commerce companies to make their refund and return policies public following intense consumer demand. Nodal officers for handling consumer complaints must be easy to find and it must also be possible to take consumer grievances to a higher level made possible by an escalation matrix.

The Consumer Affairs Minister, Ram Vilas Paswan, also announced that the National Consumer Helpline will rise from 14 to 60 operators within the next month to enable them to properly handle the weight of consumer complaints coming in. SMS and mobile apps are also scheduled to be developed in an attempt to make it easier to lodge a complaint. Moreover, four regional helplines will be set up across the country and more are planned for the future. Paswan stated that his ministry may also consider approaching the Telecom Department in order to create a three or four digit helpline number that may be required for all e-commerce advertising as on is for insurance companies.

The National Consumer Helpline has reported that 55 percent of customer complaints relate to products in the e-commerce and telecom sector and, as e-commerce on such a large scale is relatively new in India, the process for handling grievances is still being hashed out. Concerning such complaints, secretary Hem Panday said, “While the companies should acknowledge [the] time frame by which the grievances are addressed by giving a unique registration number they should also have regular interaction with the consumers. They should refrain from giving misleading image of the products and services.” In this way, the government is now taking steps to regulate the e-commerce market with the consumer in mind.