Indian Government Asks Automobile Companies to Support Right to Repair

The government of India has asked the automobile industry to support the Right to Repair initiative to enhance the after-sales experience of the consumers and bring transparency to the entire process. For those unaware, the Right to Repair (RtR) initiative covers farming equipments, mobiles/electronics displays (tablets, printers, phones, etc.), consumer durables (fridge, ACs, washing machine, etc.), and automotive equipments. 

Smt. Nidhi Khare, Secretary of the Department of Consumer Affairs (DoCA), chaired a meeting with Indian Automobile Associations, including ACMA, SIAM, ATMA, and EPIC Foundation. Additionally, a few Indian automobile giants like Tata Motors, Mahindra, TVS, Royal Enfield, Renaulds and Bosch, Yamaha Motors India, and Honda Car India, were also present at the meeting.

Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution has shared; “In the meeting, it was emphasized that products that cannot be repaired or are subject to planned obsolescence—designed with an artificially limited lifespan—contribute to e-waste and compel consumers to purchase new products due to a lack of repair options or extremely expensive repair options for reuse. Therefore, the goal is to eliminate obstacles such as restricted access to tools or repair information, ensuring that consumers have complete ownership of the products they purchase.”  

The official also added, “The goal is to eliminate obstacles such as restricted access to tools or repair information, ensuring that consumers have complete ownership of products they purchase.”

In this regard, all companies were urged to be on board the unified Right to Repair Portal India, a programme launched by the Department of Consumer Affairs, will now allow the customers to easily access the information for repairing their products seamlessly and re-use them.

The registered brands from all sectors are listed on the Right to Repair portal and the brands include LG, Zebronics, Motorola, Oppo, Boat, and HP, to name a few. The other automobile brands listed are Honda, Hero, TVS, Suzuki Motorcycles, Hyundai, and Maruti Suzuki, among others.   

The information includes:

1) Access to product manuals/ repair videos (by linking the websites and YouTube channels of the companies);

2) Address the concern on the price and warranty of spare parts;

3) Explicit mention of differences in liability covered guarantee, warranty and extended warranty;

4) Details of Companies Service Centre(s) across India and Recognition of third-party repairers (if any) by the companies.

5) Information on country of origin to be explicitly mentioned.

Cessation

The government has built the Right to Repair Portal for the benefit of consumers. The manufacturers will be providing all the service and repair-related videos and tutorials on the portal. By doing this, the consumers will be able to self-repair their products easily and reuse them, which will lead to a significant decrease in e-waste.