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The Government and National Consumer Helpline
The Government and National Consumer Helpline
It was in this context that the Department of Consumer Affairs, Government OF India set up the
National Consumer Helpline in 2005 as an alternative dispute resolution mechanism. NCH is
one of its kinds in the country and till now it has provided information and guidance to a large
number of consumers.
Year Total dockets registered under e-commerce for convergence companies Redressal
*12 Aug 2016 – 31 Mar 2017 17495 15398 (88%)
1 Apr 2017 – 31 Mar 2018 50820 48043(95%)
*Prior to August 2016, the role of NCH was primarily restricted to tendering advice to the
consumers as to how to get their complaints resolved. Since August 2016, the NCH has
been taking steps to get the grievances of the consumers resolved.
(e) & (f) : There is a National level scheme of media awareness campaign – “Jago Grahak
Jago”. The Jago Grahak Jago campaign endeavours to create consumer rights
awareness, pro-active consumer behaviour and consumer protection.1
In this debate of Lok Sabha the Ministry of Consumer Affairs mentions the awareness
program of the government Jago Grahak Jago. So, in the following section we have analyzed
this campaign
The ministry of Consumer Affairs has a consumer protection and awareness program under the
banner of “Jago Grahak Jago”.Through this program the Government aims to inform every
common man of his rights as a consumer. “Jago Grahak Jago” became the focal theme of this
scheme. Under this banner many joint scheme has also been launched by the ministry of
Consumer Affairs and other ministries.
1
loksabha.nic.in
The toll free number- 1800 11 4000 which is the National Consumer Helpline was made
polpular under the scheme of Jago Grahak Jago.
According to research done by Prof. Dhyan Singh on the “Effect of jago grahak jago “, this
campaign was useful to increase the level of the consumer awareness but there was no
satisfactory behavioural changes in the buying habits of the consumers. This study also
supported that there is a great need to do something more to change the behavior of the
consumers. It said that communication campaign has been effective in increasing the
awareness among the people but there is least evidence of the effectiveness of changing the
behavior and attitude of everybody in a vast country like India.2
CONCLUSION
This movement of Consumer Awareness aimed at making people aware about their consumer
rights and also making the National Consumer Helpline popular. In terms of the awareness part
this campaign was definitely a huge hit and people did get to know about their rights as a
consumer and Jago Grahak Jago became a household tagline, but when we talk about the
National Consumer Helpline the effects were not that satisfactory. This conclusion can also be
substantiated by the responses that we received in our primary research- most of the people
were aware about the Jago Grahak Jago Campaign and the Consumer rights, but they were
unaware of the existence of a National Consumer Helpline. The government has been
successful in making people aware of their consumer rights but has failed in making them
aware about the National Consumer Helpline.
2
Dr. Dhyan Singh (2014)- Effect of “Jago Grahak Jago” Communication Campaigns in India to Increase Consumer
Awareness