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India will soon come up with standards for shared-economy services players owing to the rising number of complaints from consumers and the increasing reach of digital players across the consumer ecosystem.
The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), which is under the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, is taking the initiative in this regard. The BIS held a meeting on this on April 25.
India’s effort on this replicates initiatives taken by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). Rather, the BIS is co-ordinating with the ISO and has sent its inputs for standards for cab aggregators.
Shared-economy services standards are part of the bigger action plan to create benchmarks for services. They are not there now. The BIS has standards for all products, including consumer durables and electronics.
An email sent to the ministry remained unanswered and attempts to get in touch with the BIS were not successful. “On the basis of inputs from consumers, LocalCircles had approached the ministry and BIS in 2018 about the need for creating standards for services in India,” said Sachin Taparia, founder of LocalCircles, who is on several government sub-committees for services standards.
IN THE WORKS
- Proposed norms will be synced with standards created by ISO; BIS is co-ordinating with the international agency
- The initiative by BIS may subsequently cover majority of players who use digital platforms and offer various services
- Shared economy covers segments like shared mobility (Ola/Uber), co-working (Awfis, WeWork), co-living (OYO, Stanza Living), and furniture rental (Furlenco)
“Like we have standards for products in India, we need them for services in sectors like shared economy, ecommerce, retail, payments, and aftersales. Creating standards will help reduce consumer grievances.”
Shared economy predominantly covers segments like shared mobility (Ola/Uber), co-working (Awfis, WeWork), co-living (OYO, StanzaLiving, etc), and furniture rental.
Another source in the know said: “The initiative is starting with shared economy but it will cover a majority of players using digital platforms and offering services as well. These standards will be blended into those being created by the ISO.”
So far 32 such services have been identified. These include travel/ticket services, e-pharmacy, quick commerce, delivery services, food aggregators, payment services, and accommodation services.
“Digital-platform players have brought in convenience and sometimes good discounts to the consumer but areas like privacy, reliability, and trustworthiness are unaddressed. People using online platforms get duped,” said a source who attended the April 25 meeting, whose minutes Business Standard has seen.
Some aspects discussed in the meeting were general trustworthiness and safety for the digital platform.
Since the first segment being looked into is shared mobility, the minutes of the meetings proposed “the platform operators shall be transparent towards providers and users on use of dynamic pricing mechanisms and their major parameters and ensure reasonable surge pricing at all times and surge pricing should be capped as per the local regulation”.
The source added: “We are in discussion with the ministry and Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) to include all these services in the e-commerce Draft Rules. Currently the Rules look at only ecommerce players.”
