FMCG, Retail, Food Industry Must Improve Consumer Grievance Redressal System: Consumer Affairs Secy

Consumer Affairs Secretary Nidhi Khare on Tuesday asked FMCG, food and retail industries to strengthen their consumer grievance redressal system to ensure quality products and services, as she expressed concern over rising complaints.

Addressing a conference organised by FICCI, she asserted the need to enhance testing infrastructure in the country and the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and robotics to boost the capacity to test samples of products on quality standards.

Khare informed that the government is working on simplifying standards that have been framed by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) so that the industry can comply with those quality norms.

"In the department of consumer affairs, we assure consumers of quality as well as quantity. So, for quality, we have BIS, which is the national standards body. We have testing laboratories, which is also part of BIS, which enables and empanels several third-party testing facilities," she said.

That apart, Khare said there is National Test House, which is bringing up testing infrastructure in emerging fields like aerospace, drones, organic food testing, EV batteries, switches and solar panels among others.

"I think time has come when we have to realise that we cannot grow unless we actually look after the quality concerns in our manufacturing, in the way we are selling our products to the consumers. As more and more consumers are becoming aware, they have started demanding. We are getting almost five times more complaints than what we used to get five years back," the secretary said.

The department is using technology to protect consumer rights and it is getting consumer complaints through the National Consumer Helpline number. People are also filing cases on e-Jagriti portal, if they have not been compensated for their losses.

Citing a complaint by a user of a top-notch car and poor grievance redressal system of the automobile company, Khare said, "This shows a lot of frustration, both amongst poor consumers as well as very very high end consumers." She said the customers are now demanding better systems to answer their queries, their problems. "There has to be a proper redressal of their grievances".

"We need to scale up, and we should be able to actually test more samples in a manner which is accurate, does not have human contact. Therefore, we are going to start the use of AI and robotics in enhancing the testing infrastructure," she said.

The secretary said this will bring down the cost of the testing for the MSMEs, and will also enhance the accuracy, the traceability.

"For example, if we are testing 30 samples per day, we can scale up to say 300 samples every day. So that is the scale which is required, and we are working towards it," Khare said.

Further, the secretary highlighted that the government has decriminalised many provisions.

"The idea is to build trust in our manufacturers, in our retailers, and try to see that very small, which are not intended mistakes, should be not treated as a criminal offence," she said.

Khare said the department has introduced a provision of improvement notice under the Legal Metrology Act.

The manufacturers and retailers would be given some time to correct their mistakes and make amends before the case can be treated for compounding, she added.

For ease of doing business, Khare said the government has reduced the QCOs (Quality Control Orders).

"So earlier the QCOs on the products were about 700 odd. Now it has come down to 624. BIS actually has set up at least 24,000 standards, and only a fraction of these standards are mandatory," she added.

In many countries, Khare said there is also a lot of conformity which comes voluntarily.

Indian business houses can voluntarily conform to the standards which have been prescribed by the BIS, she said.

Khare said the department is also simplifying standards so that they are easily understandable by the industry. "So I think this work should be completed by World Standards Day, which is on the 14th of October".

This will help industries, especially MSME, to comply with these standards, she added.