Piyush Goyal, the Minister of Food and Consumer Affairs has launched some new initiatives including a right-to-repair portal, an NTH mobile app and new premises for the National Consumer Helpline centre in Delhi on the occasion of National Consumer Day. So, after the United States and the United Kingdom, India has also launched the right-to-repair portal. The right-to-repair will reduce the dependency of consumers on the manufacturers for repairs. Rather, they could go to third-party repair centres and save time and money in the process. It also favours the local repair shops.
Source: Apple
Consumers get manuals along with the products they will buy according to the new rules and regulations of the right-to-repair initiative. They can use it to fix their products by themselves or get them fixed by third parties rather than depend on the original manufacturers.
The right-to-repair launch will cover electronic products, consumer durables, mobile phones, farming equipment, and automobiles for now.
As pointed out in the Repairs.org portal, “manufacturers do not have any rights to control property beyond the sale. Limitations on repair have become a serious problem for all modern equipment that also limits how equipment can be traded on the used market”. Even Steve Wozniak chimes in his approval for the right to repair movement.
Piyush Goyal (Source: Flickr)
"I think action speaks more than words. The Department of Consumer Affairs was not so much in limelight …and suddenly it has found life in their workings," said Piyush Goyal after the launch on National Consumers Day. Mr Goyal said there will be an increase in the disposal of pending cases and elimination of the backlog in the days to come.
Fixing products by the original manufacturers takes a lot of time and they have unnecessary policies and costs which trouble customers. So, with the new right-to-repair portal, consumers get to repair their products on their own without seeking help from the original manufacturers. In the process, they could save both time and money.
And as they go to the local repair shops, the latters’ business also booms.
Finally, Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, National Consumer Redressal Commission President said that the pendency of consumer cases is reducing which gives confidence to consumers that they will get justice.