Guwahati, Feb 20: In a remarkable shift towards consumer empowerment, Arunachal Pradesh has emerged as a frontrunner in the North-Eastern region’s consumer rights movement, registering an extraordinary 49-fold increase in grievances addressed by the National Consumer Helpline (NCH).
From just 318 complaints in 2020, the state has witnessed a meteoric rise to 15,860 complaints in 2024, underscoring the growing trust in India’s consumer grievance redressal system.
This success story is part of a broader regional trend, with consumer complaints across the Northeast rising by 300%, from 9,162 grievances in 2020 to 36,609 in 2024. The surge reflects the impact of targeted outreach, multilingual assistance, and digital awareness campaigns led by the Department of Consumer Affairs.
Several key initiatives have played a pivotal role in making consumer grievance redressal more accessible in the remote and tribal-dominated regions of Arunachal Pradesh:
🔹 Localized Awareness Programs: Consumer outreach has expanded into rural and tribal communities through workshops, collaborations with self-help groups (SHGs), and NGO partnerships. As a result, consumer grievances from rural areas skyrocketed from just 3 in 2020 to 381 in 2024.
🔹 Multilingual Support: Language barriers that once discouraged consumers from seeking redressal are breaking down. The NCH has introduced regional dialect support, making it easier for Arunachal Pradesh residents to file complaints in their native languages.
🔹 Women-Led Consumer Participation: A significant highlight has been the rise in women lodging consumer complaints, signalling a positive step toward gender inclusivity in consumer rights. More women are now demanding accountability in e-commerce, digital transactions, and essential services.
🔹 Digital Transformation: The majority of grievances are now being filed online, reflecting Arunachal Pradesh’s rapid digital adoption. The state saw an exponential increase in complaints filed via the NCH web portal—from just 98 in 2020 to 15,230 in 2024, a staggering 517% rise in the last year alone.
A closer look at consumer grievances in Arunachal Pradesh reveals a high volume of complaints in e-commerce, telecom services, digital payments, and faulty goods/services. Cases range from non-refunded online purchases to undelivered orders and telecom disputes.
For instance, in Papum Pare, a consumer who struggled for weeks to get a refund from an e-commerce platform received the amount within three days after NCH’s intervention. Similarly, in Lower Subansiri, a customer’s delayed Scrambler seat delivery (pending for 41 days) was expedited within just four days after contacting NCH.
Building on Arunachal Pradesh’s success, the Department of Consumer Affairs is now scaling up consumer rights initiatives in Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur, Nagaland, Tripura, Mizoram, and Sikkim.
