National Anti-Profiteering Authority goes online

In a bid to ensure timely grievance redressal for consumers, the National Anti-Profiteering Authority (NAA) launched the "Anti Profiteering" online community in association with a citizen-engagement platform, LocalCircles.

The platform, comprising over 60,000 active Indian citizens, was launched in a bid to help users report cases of profiteering at the earliest, thereby ensuring timely redressal of the same.

Since the launch of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) in July last year, thousands of consumers have reported cases of profiteering by sellers leading to their monthly household bills increasing. This was primarily because some sellers were charging GST over the maximum retail price (MRP) of products, while others were not passing on the benefits of Input Tax Credit to consumers, thereby indulging in illegal profiteering.

With the online community operational, members can easily report cases of profiteering, thereby alerting the active citizens as well as the NAA of such malpractices. While these leads will not replace the formal complaint mechanism, it will provide leads and alerts to the authority, thereby, making GST compliance a true citizen-government partnership.

The Authority has also simplified the format of filing complaints and has done away with the requirement of a Harmonised System of Nomenclature (HSN) code for the same.

For those unversed, the establishment of the NAA was approved by the Union Cabinet in November last year for a two-year period.

The authority is mandated to ensure that the benefits of input credit and the reduction in GST rates on specified goods or services are passed on to consumers by way of a commensurate reduction in prices.