Exclusive: Alcohol makers must not ‘indulge’ in surrogate ads, says outgoing Consumer Affairs Secy

As Consumer Affairs Secretary Rohit Kumar Singh preps to hand over the department to senior bureaucrat Nidhi Khare on March 31, he spoke at length with CNBC-TV18’s Timsy Jaipuria on a range of issues including inflation, Patanjali’s misleading advertisement, electric vehicles batteries and service charges issue at restaurants and more.

RBI is right. Inflation is something to watch and globally food inflation has been a matter of concern. But I can say with a lot of sincerity that India has been able to manage its food inflation really well when it compares to other geographies.

It starts with very proactive monitoring and then taking policy decisions quickly.

In commodities, timing is the key and our governance framework from the inter-ministerial committee of secretaries to the committee of secretaries headed by the Cabinet Secretary, to the Group of Ministers headed by the Home Minister.

This works in tandem and it works very fast because you have to realise that prices of commodities have two dimensions. One is we have to support the farmer, the other is we have to make sure that the consumer is able to get goods both in an affordable way and they have to be available.

So, availability and affordability are two key paradigms on which we work and by taking decisions proactively through this governance framework, we have been able to manage it fine.

Ans. Pulses is one commodity that keeps us busy and on our feet all the time. If you look at the pulses basket, we consume about two 80 lakh tonnes and we produce about two 72 to 75 lakh tonnes.

We constantly have to watch the production in East African countries and Myanmar and ensure that the flow of imports is seamless and without any problem because that is how we ensure the availability within the country.

A consistent import policy. A seamless flow of imports through our ports and keeping an eye on the overseas production that has to be done almost on a daily basis. That is why we have been able to ensure that the prices are high, but we have not let it go further higher.

So that has been a success. But other than tur, chana prices, masoor prices and especially lentil prices, are totally under control.

Ans. I don't think farmers are unhappy. It is a segment of the trade which was, you know the prices in India FOB (Free On Board) were like $340, but in overseas markets like Bangladesh, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, they were at about $1000.

So a segment of the trade obviously wanted to make that killing which we have prevented because for us domestic suppliers are very important because if you let the stuff go out, then the availability in the domestic market suffers.

We have not let it go beyond ₹30-35/kg. It is only possible because of policy interventions like ban of export and other stuff, so that for the domestic consumers, the availability and affordability is ensured, which for any government is a top priority.

Even today we check the retail prices in Lasalgaon and Nasik mandis, it's in the range of ₹13 to ₹15.

So the farmer is not being short changed. It's just the differential between the overseas price and the domestic FOB that some traders obviously would suffer, but we have to take care of the domestic consumer first.

This year, the government has announced that we will be buying 5 lakh tonnes for the government buffer. It will start maybe in 15-20 days from now when the moisture level of the onion which comes from the farm goes down, so it's dried up. So by ensuring that 5 lakh tonnes will be bought through NAFED and NCCF from the domestic farmer, it gives further comfort to the farmer that any kind of crisis in terms of prices crashing will not happen.

We are concerned about misleading advertisements because we think that the rights of the consumers get adversely affected because you're promising something which is not there.

We keep a close eye on misleading advertisements.

We also work with other agencies like Advertising Standard Council of India which are a source of information for us for misleading advertisements.

Overall the menace of misleading advertisement has to be curbed because under the Consumer Protection Act, it's misleading, it's an unfair trading practice and it needs to be curbed because a consumer cannot be taken for a ride.

Ans: Industries like alcohol and tobacco try to circumvent the advertising regulation, whether it is banned and they try to use it as an extension of a brand.

So we say no, you have to give us details of sales.

CCPA, which I chair now, has just issued an order about a week back that they have to give us the value of the advertising on the extended brand, that is what is the actual revenue they get from the sales because any normal business practice will have you advertise in proportion of the revenues of that product. So if it is out of proportion, that means the surrogate advertising is being indulged into and that's an unfair trading practice.

There are two aspects when it comes to EV batteries. One is the performance and safety aspect for which the Ministry of Transport and the institute in Pune called ARAI that is making standards and norms.

What we were concerned with was the standards for battery swapping.

Battery swapping is when you have a two-wheeler or a three-wheeler you go to something like a petrol pump.You give your old battery, pick up a new battery and move on. A lot of work had gone into making standards for that but then after consulting with all the stakeholders, we realised that if you prescribe standards of size of the type of the connector or the battery management systems is BMS, then you are actually stifling innovation.

You cannot prescribe standards for an industry which is still growing and there are technologies coming up, lithium ions there.

So we decided performance and safety should have standards but on the other thing, let the standards evolve and let there be horizontal kinds of standards. That is the current thinking in the government.

It's a very tricky thing to handle because we have seen the boom in terms of influencers and social media. We have only made very simple guidelines like do's and don'ts that you have to disclose. The consumer has the right to know that this is not your fair opinion, but you have taken money to say that.

If somebody is peddling a particular protein or a particular medicine on social media, then he has to disclose his or her qualifications. Are you a doctor? Are you a nutritionist? Are you trained in this? How are you saying this?

We also wrote to SEBI, and SEBI is taking a lot of action on that, that if you are giving a financial advice, then you have to have a disclaimer and that space has to be very closely regulated because especially with artificial intelligence and deep fakes happening.

I was in a conference with the consumer protection judges and activists in Mumbai on the World Consumer day. One lady from Punjab, a member of one of our commissions, said she also works on the social side. There are rural women in Fazilka district who have come to her and said we saw this video where Ratan Tata is saying you invest ₹2000 in this. And we know it is deep fake and how do you prevent that?

These are some of the challenges which will emerge in coming times, especially the use of deep fake, not just in investment, in elections etc. but in many other aspects. So we need to work extensively in this domain as to how the whole world is struggling with it.

We also must realise that this regulation versus innovation debate is something the whole world is struggling with. If you regulate too much, then technology will not develop. If you regulate too less, then it is harmful.

The US had this order signed by President Biden, then Prime Minister Sonak did a conference in Bridgefield and he came up with regulations. The EU just had the first act regulating artificial intelligence, so I think we have to work very intensively in that space.

In terms of digital access, we are one of the largest in the world and we have to have a framework which talks about what is right and what is wrong, how much should be regulated and how.

Just like nuclear technology, I'm giving a bad parallel, but I personally feel it is a parallel that distinctly, you know, transcends borders. So just like you have an agency called IAEA, International Atomic Energy Agency.You need a similar agency probably in AI also, where all the countries have to be on the same page.

It's primarily their space. We are just related with the consumer aspect when something is being purchased either a good or a service where a consideration is being exchanged.

We are concerned when it comes to unfair practices. So if there is an unfair medical practice, then people can come to consumer commissions and consumer courts and they have been coming.Out of the 5.4 lakh cases that India has in its consumer courts at all the three levels, national, state and districts 1/3 pertain to insurance, that is 1.6 lakh cases pertain to insurance and we have taken a note of it.

There is still a lot of work to be done, for example one of our colleagues from Punjab once told me that when you buy travel insurance when you're travelling, the consumer is not clear as to what is covered, what is not covered. So we need to have a separate regulation for that.

Medical insurance is only applicable when you are treated as an inpatient.

With the advancement of technology, there are many procedures which can be done in 6-7 hours and you can go home. I'll give you an example of gallbladder removal, or cataract surgery. It happens and you can go home in 6-7 hours. You are in the hospital for less than 24 hours.

So is this not admissible for medical insurance? We wrote to the finance ministry about the evolving aspects. We need to keep changing so that consumers are adequately protected.

We are just fighting for the rights of the consumers who go and eat at restaurants. We have the firm belief that service charge is like a gratuity or a tip. The argument about paying waiters out of that kitty is not a logical argument because we are saying, if you want to do that, you increase the price on the menu, but don't disguise the charges, don't fool the consumer.

That's the fundamental principle.

So when the bill comes, it says taxes, of course everybody has to pay and then it says "SC" or the service charge, half of people don't know what SC is. Any charge has to be justified.

It's there in the court and in one more hearing it will be sorted out, hopefully in favour of the consumer.

Ans: We have now become the 13th country in the world to issue certifications for all kinds of weighing and measuring instruments, including the ones that you mentioned. There are high precision and low precision instruments used by the industry.

Now the OIML, which is a French international organization for legal metrology, has given India the authority to issue certificates that are internationally acceptable.

If a blood pressure meter of Figmo Mammometer is manufactured by an Indian company and it's certified by Indian authorities, then it can be sold anywhere in the world and that certificate is valid.

We just issued our first certificate on March 15 on the World Consumer Day. We already have applications from Czechoslovakia and Russia and other countries to certify their devices which they want to sell all across the world.