The Department of Consumer Affairs is dedicated to safeguarding consumer rights and empowering individuals by implementing progressive legislation. To adapt to the evolving landscape of globalisation, technology, and e-commerce, the Consumer Protection Act, 1986, was replaced with the Consumer Protection Act, 2019, introducing a modern framework for consumer protection.
The Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) has been established under Section 10 of the Consumer Protection Act, 2019 to regulate matters related to violation of rights of consumers, unfair trade practices, and false or misleading advertisements that are prejudicial to the interests of the public and consumers to promote, protect, and enforce the rights of the consumers as a class.
On November 13, 2024, CCPA issued “Guidelines for Prevention of Misleading Advertisement in Coaching Sector, 2024” in order to prevent coaching centres from making false or misleading claims/advertisements to promote the sale of goods or services and engage in deceptive or unfair practices.
In order to protect consumer interest, CCPA has issued 45 notices to various coaching centres for misleading advertisements. The CCPA has imposed a penalty of Rs 61,60,000 on 19 coaching institutes and directed them to discontinue the misleading advertisements and unfair trade practices.
The National Consumer Helpline (NCH), administered by the Department of Consumer Affairs, has emerged as a single point of access for consumers across the country for their grievance redressal at a pre-litigation stage. Consumers can register their grievances from all over the country in 17 languages through a toll-free number 1915. These grievances can be registered on the Integrated Grievance Redressal Mechanism (INGRAM), an omni-channel IT-enabled central portal, through various channels: WhatsApp, SMS, mail, the NCH app, the web portal, and the Umang app, as per their convenience. 1004 companies, who have voluntarily partnered with NCH, as part of the ‘Convergence’ program, directly respond to these grievances according to their redressal process and revert by providing feedback to the complainant on the portal. Complaints against those companies, who have not partnered with the National Consumer Helpline, are forwarded to the company’s email address for redressal.
The Department of Consumer Affairs, through the National Consumer Helpline (NCH), has successfully intervened at a pre-litigation stage to ensure justice for students and aspirants who enrolled for the UPSC Civil Services, IIT, and other entrance examinations. Following numerous complaints registered in the National Consumer Helpline regarding unfair practices by various coaching centres, especially not refunding the enrolment fees of the students/aspirants, NCH initiated a drive to resolve these grievances on a mission mode to facilitate a total refund of ₹ 1.15 crore to affected students.
