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As the government is pushing for consumer protection and awareness, consumer complaints have risen 54 percent to about 4.85 lakh between April and October 15, 2022, sources privy to the developments told CNBC-TV18.
These complaints which have been registered at the National Consumer Helpline, run by the department of consumer affairs, pitch consumers to take benefit of government intervention to resolve grievances.
According to the recent data, shared by government sources and exclusively accessed by CNBC-TV18, trends show that most of the consumer complaints were received against e-commerce companies, which were up by 81 percent to 2,11,562 between April to October 15, 2022.
Similarly, sources shared that the complaints against retail outlets have seen the sharpest rise of 176 percent between April to October 15, 2022. Complaints against telecom and broadband internet services have logged in the lowest rise of 3 percent between April to October 15, 2022.
When it comes to the complaints against consumer durables, it has seen a rise of 55 percent from April-October 15, 2022 as against the number of complaints registered during the same period last year, sources in the know told CNBC-TV18.
Consumers also raised their complaints against digital payments and this has seen a rise of 52 percent between April to October 15, 2022, as against the number of complaints registered during the same period last year.
According to multiple people familiar with the development, the ministry of consumer affairs has been constantly analysing this data and approaching the government and private stakeholders to ensure that these complaints are redressed as early as possible and if needed, sectoral regulators have been asked to pitch in and make the complaint redressal system robust and faster.
It is also important to see these trends amid the fact that people using e-commerce is much much less than those using banking services in India. The consumer base who are using banking services is too huge and only about 32,121 complaints getting registered at the National consumer helpline is actually very minuscule.
Experts said this is because banks already have a much-advertised complaint redressal system, which is much preferred by the consumers as they feel they are directly telling the relevant bank to look into their complaint rather than some other third agency first getting the complaint and then taking it forward on their behalf.
Similarly, for telecom and internet services, the consumer base is very large and people prefer complaining at the service provider level rather than approaching the consumer helpline.
First Published: IST
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