ICC organises roundtable on consumer awareness in Guwahati

HT Bureau
GUWAHATI, Sept 15: Indian Chamber of Commerce in association with Amway India Enterprises Pvt. Ltd. and Patient Safety & Access Initiative of India Foundation organised a roundtable on ‘Consumer Awareness in the North East Region’ on Tuesday in Guwahati in order to discuss various dimensions of consumer awareness on various categories of products and services including issues on regulatory oversight faced by IRDAI, RBI, FSSAI, IDSA and others. S. K. Jain, chairman, ICC Assam State Council & CMD, S M Group extended the welcome address of the roundtable. Prof. Bejon Kumar Misra, chairman, ICC North East Food Safety & Consumer Protection Committee in his keynote address shared that ICC would like to conduct consumer awareness programs across the entire north-east region with the involvement of relevant stakeholders.
B. Kalyan Chakravarthy, IAS, principal secretary, Labour Welfare department, Government of Assam graced the program with his presence as the guest of honour. Rajat Banerji, vice chairman, Indian Direct Selling Association & vice president – Corporate Affairs, Amway India Enterprises Pvt. Ltd talked about the provisions of Rule 11 of Consumer Protection (Direct Selling) Rules 2021 & the importance of direct selling monitoring mechanism to ensure compliance by direct selling entities.
Opak Gao, IAS, secretary, Legal Metrology & Consumer Affairs department, Government of Arunachal Pradesh shared the perspective of Arunachal Pradesh and Leena Das, ACS, additional secretary, Food, Civil Supplies & Consumer Affairs department, Government of Assam shared the perspective of Assam.
B P Acharya, retired IAS, chairman, Advisory Committee to IRDAI chaired the session – ‘Sector wise initiatives & updates-strategic way forward for consumer protection’.
The other dignitaries who participated in the roundtable were Dr. Darlando Khathing, vice-chancellor, North East Christian University, Dimapur; Somnath Ghosh, Insurance Ombudsman, Guwahati; Sumeysh Krisshnan, deputy director, Food Safety & Standard Authority of India; Prof. Subhash Khanna, chairman, ICC-NE Health Committee; Samir Barua, chairman, ICC-NE Banking & MSME Committee; Shantikam Hazarika, chairman, ICC-NE Education Committee; Sunil Saraf, chairman, ICC-NE Tourism & Hospitality Committee & Dhiraj Thakuria, co-chairman, ICC-NE Handlooms & Handicrafts Committee.
The opening session of the roundtable was moderated by Tarali Sarmah, senior assistant director, Indian Chamber of Commerce and Ishantor Sobhapandit, regional director of Indian Chamber of Commerce extended the concluding remarks and vote of thanks to all the stakeholders.