OREANDA-NEWS. In line with best practices in developed countries, Department of Consumer Affairs, Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution has launched a scheme on National Consumer Helpline and subsequently the State Consumer Helplines (SCH) .Thirty States have so far availed the funds from Consumer Welfare Fund to establish Helplines according to the scheme.

A National Resource Centre Knowledge Resource Management Portal for State Helplines under the Centre for Consumer Studies is functioning at the Indian Institute of Public Administration (IIPA) to act as a nodal agency to integrate State Helplines, coordinate its activities, conduct training for their counselors and to host a central IT system providing a common knowledge base with frequently occurring problems and solutions. The Centralised Application software hosted at IIPA Servers is has a high speed dedicated internet connection.

The National Consumer Helpline also functions from IIPA under the Center of Consumer Studies. Efforts are on to bring Consumer grievance and helpline mechanism under one common IT platform with a single toll free number across the country.

The Department has recently invited applications from registered and eligible Voluntary Consumer Organizations for setting up and running Consumer Care Centers (Grahak Suvidha Kendra) in any of the following   locations in India:-

•             North:                                      Lucknow  / Chandigarh

•             South:                                       Bangalore Chennai/Hyderabad

•             West:                                        Jaipur / Ahmedabad/Pune

•             East:                                         Bhubaneswar / Patna /Calcutta

•             North East:                               Guwahati / Shillong

•             Central:                                    Raipur / Bhopal

•             National Capital:                       New Delhi

•       These Centers (CCC) will function as a one stop Center providing a spectrum of services to consumers.

•       The Centers will provide counseling consumers in redressal of their grievances and assist the Consumers in registering their complaints in the appropriate consumer fora. 

•       The Centers will also be authorized to take up complaints with privatecompanies/manufacturers/service providers on behalf of the Government of India

Ministry has also drawn several other plans and programmes for empowerment of Consumers and there welfare.  Initiative has been taken on mainstreaming consumer advocacy in the policy decisions of other seven sectors of housing, health, Transport, Financial services, Food and Agriculture by constituting an Inter-ministerial Group. The Group had discussions held on integrating quality standards, enforcing mandatory quality standards on potable water, street food and garbage disposal so as to bring it in alliance with “Make in India “ and Swachh Bharat “ concepts . It was also decided to expand the list of sector specific products under mandatory standards.

A new Initiative was taken in curbing misleading advertisements, by constituting an IMC. The IMC has asked all VCOs and State Governments to take a pro- active action against the false and misleading advertisements that leads to consumer exploitation. It has also been decided to involve apex industry bodies like CII and FICCI to come out with Code of Business Ethics. ASCI being already doing a backend job for the I&B Ministry has also been involved in scrutinizing complaints received on the matter. Such complaints wherein action is recommended will be sent by DCA to concerned administrative Ministries.