Consumer Affairs

The Consumer Protection Act, 2019 came into force on 20 July 2020 and replaced the Act of 1986. It created the Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA), established on 24 July 2020, with powers to investigate violations of consumer rights, order recalls and refunds, and act against misleading advertisements.

According to the Department’s Year-End Review 2025, 25 rules and 6 regulations have been notified under the Act. In December 2025 the Department reported that the CCPA had issued over 450 class-action notices and imposed penalties exceeding ₹2.13 crore.

Legal metrology is the regulation of weights, measures and packaged commodities. The Centre sets standards under the Legal Metrology Act, 2009, and State Legal Metrology departments enforce them. India is the 13th country authorised to issue OIML certificates, the international approvals for measuring instruments.

On World Metrology Day, 20 May 2026, PIB reported his remarks on the role of accurate measurement in building trust in policy making. The release said that 40 Government Approved Test Centre (GATC) certificates had been issued to private entities and that e-Maap had been launched as a unified digital platform for Legal Metrology registration and enforcement. It also recorded a shift from licensing to registration, and the decriminalisation of minor offences under the Jan Vishwas (Amendment of Provisions) Act, 2026. India is to host the 61st meeting of the International Committee of Legal Metrology (CIML) in New Delhi in October 2026.

The 2019 Act defines six consumer rights: to be protected against hazardous goods and services; to be informed about quality, quantity, potency, purity, standard and price; to be assured access to a variety of goods and services at competitive prices; to be heard; to seek redressal against unfair or restrictive trade practices; and to consumer awareness.

National Consumer Day is observed on 24 December and World Consumer Rights Day on 15 March. The Department’s themes were “Virtual Hearings & Digital Access to Consumer Justice” in 2024 and “Efficient and Speedy Disposal through Digital Justice” in 2025.

The Price Monitoring Division tracks the daily retail and wholesale prices of essential commodities. From 1 August 2024 coverage was expanded from 22 to 38 commodities, covering about 31 per cent of the CPI weight, and version 4.0 of the Price Monitoring System app was launched. Releases give different centre counts: 474 in September 2025 and 575 in the Year-End Review 2025.

As a market intervention, the Government sells staples at fixed prices under the Bharat brand. Phase II, launched on 5 November 2024, priced Bharat Atta at ₹30/kg and Bharat Rice at ₹34/kg. From 1 November 2025, Phase III priced Atta at ₹31.50/kg and Rice at ₹35/kg.

The CCPA notified the Guidelines for Prevention and Regulation of Dark Patterns, 2023 on 30 November 2023. They identify 13 deceptive design practices in online interfaces. On 28 May 2025 he chaired a stakeholder meeting and directed e-commerce companies to self-audit their platforms. A CCPA advisory of 5 June 2025 set a three-month deadline for those audits.

By 20 November 2025, 26 platforms had filed self-declarations of compliance. In June 2026 the CCPA imposed penalties on two companies for dark patterns.

On National Consumer Day 2024, 13 e-commerce platforms signed a Safety Pledge. The Department reported that the CCPA had acted against seat-belt alarm stopper clips, which were delisted from five e-commerce platforms.

Quality Control Orders make BIS certification mandatory for notified products. In March 2025 the Department cited 180 QCOs covering 769 products.

Consumer awareness campaigns run under the “Jago Grahak Jago” banner. On 18 March 2025 the Department launched a campaign, “Be an Empowered Consumer”, with Meta on online safety. On 24 December 2024 the Jago Grahak Jago app, the Jagriti app and the Jagriti Dashboard were launched.

The National Consumer Helpline (toll-free 1915) is a pre-litigation channel. It operates in 17 languages through phone, SMS, WhatsApp, an app, UMANG and a web portal. The Department reported average monthly complaints rising from 37,062 in 2017 to 1,70,585 in 2025, and refunds of ₹42.6 crore across 30 sectors between April and December 2025. The AI-enabled NCH 2.0 was launched on 24 December 2024.

Formal disputes are heard by three tiers of Consumer Commissions. e-Jagriti, launched on 1 January 2025, merged the earlier case systems and runs in over 670 District Commissions, 36 State/UT Commissions and the National Commission. In 2025, over 1.4 lakh cases were disposed of and over 90,000 hearings were held by video conference.

The Bureau of Indian Standards is the national standards body. In January 2026 it had over 23,300 standards in force. In October 2024 it reported that 94 per cent of its standards were harmonised with ISO/IEC standards.

Hallmarking with a six-digit Hallmark Unique Identification (HUID) is mandatory for gold jewellery in notified districts. Coverage grew in six phases from 256 districts in June 2021 to 380 districts from March 2026. More than 60 crore gold items were hallmarked with HUID between July 2021 and March 2026. HUID marking for hallmarked silver began on 1 September 2025.

E-commerce is regulated under the Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) Rules, 2020, the 2022 guidelines on misleading advertisements, the dark-patterns guidelines and the Legal Metrology (Packaged Commodities) Rules. A February 2026 amendment to the packaged-commodity rules requires e-commerce sites to offer a searchable and sortable country-of-origin filter for imported goods from 1 July 2026, as reported in legal commentary.