With an aim to expedite grievance resolution, the National Consumer Helpline (NCH) has partnered with over 1,000 companies under its Convergence Programme to expedite grievance resolution.
These companies span major sectors, including e-commerce, travel and tourism, private education, FMCG, consumer durables, electronic products, retail outlets, automobiles, DTH & cable services, and banking. Complaints related to these convergence companies are directly transferred to them for online resolution.
NCH is also in the process of introducing AI-based Speech Recognition, a Translation System, and a Multilingual Chatbot as part of the NCH 2.0 initiative.
The AI-powered Speech Recognition and Translation System will allow consumers to file complaints through voice input in their local languages, minimising manual intervention. The Multilingual Chatbot will further streamline the complaint-handling process by providing real-time assistance, reducing manual data entry, and enhancing the overall user experience.
Notably, the number of convergence partners has steadily increased from 263 companies in 2017 to 1009 companies as of now.
The Department of Consumer Affairs (DoCA) has recently identified the top ten non-convergence companies that have received the highest number of grievances during the current fiscal year (2024-25).
These companies include Delhivery Limited, Electronicscomp.com, Domino’s Pizza, Haier Appliances India Pvt. Ltd, FirstCry.com, Thomson India, Mahindra & Mahindra, Rapido, Orient Electric Limited, and Symphony Limited.
A meeting with these companies is scheduled for next week, to discuss and address the ongoing grievances and to bring them onboard as convergence partners, the department said.
Over the span of a decade, the number of calls received by NCH has grown nearly tenfold, from 14,795 calls in January 2015 to 1,41,817 calls in January 2024. Further, the average number of complaints registered per month has surged to 1,12,468 in 2024 from 37,062 in 2017.