Boycott China on full swing, mentioning Country of origin is now a must for E-commerce portals.
In its attempt to stop such violators and those failing to comply with other provisions of the Consumer Protection Act such as trade malpractices, the consumer affairs ministry has set up the central consumer protection authority (CCPA), which will take up these cases suo motu or on a direction from the central government.
Consumer Affairs Minister Ram Vilas Paswan said at an online press conference on Thursday (July 9), had said that “At a time when we are pushing for ‘Made in India’ products, it is equally necessary for our consumers to know exactly where the products that they are buying are coming from.”
This step taken by the government comes as a step to promote local products, the Union government has made it mandatory for all sellers on the Government e-Marketplace (GeM), a platform for public procurement, to list the “country of origin” while registering new products.
Representatives of as many as 30 ecommerce sites including Amazon, Flipkart, Jio, Shoppers Stop, Croma, Snapdeal, Lenskart, Paytm, Grofers, Tata Cliq, Pharmeasy, 1MG, HomeShop 18, Zomato, Swiggy and Medikabazaar attended the call. The companies raised points related to the feasibility of the move and lack of clarity in the Legal Metrology (Packaged Commodity) Rules as they sought more time.
At a meeting last month, the companies had said that displaying these details was feasible but on
Wednesday, they flagged issues such as coronavirus having hit MSMEs and technological hurdles in implementing requirements.
There are punitive provisions in the law. For the first offence, a penalty up to ₹25000 can be charged, for the second offence, the fine may extend to ₹50,000. Any subsequent offences can attract a jail term of one year.
Though the law has been in place for the last three years, the Ministry has no details on how many times it has been invoked to penalise any of these portals.
Secretary, Consumer Affairs, Leena Nandan, said that the Ministry was still collating the figures. When questioned about the timing of the reminder, she said that it was only to help the consumers make an informed choice.
Flipkart, owned by US-based retail behemoth Walmart Inc, is believed to be the first large e-commerce platform to start providing details of where goods are manufactured.
“Sellers have always been required to disclose the country of origin for all imported products they sell on our platform. For whichever listings the information was available, we’ve started exposing that to users,” a Flipkart executive was reported as saying.
