Indian consumers’ right to repair now spans four key sectors: official
The framework aims to ease access to overhauling services not just by original manufacturers but also by reliable third-party technicians to lower costs and lengthen shelf life of devices and appliances
The central government has scaled up its right-to-repair initiative to cover four sectors -- consumer durables, electronic devices, automobiles and farm equipment – onboarding leading brands on a unified portal, an official said on Tuesday.

The right to repair refers to government measures that forbid manufacturers to impose barriers that deny consumers the ability to repair consumer products. The framework aims to ease access to overhauling services not just by original manufacturers but also by reliable third-party technicians to lower costs and lengthen the shelf life of devices, equipment and home appliances.
When tech products falter, most consumers replace them with newer ones because fixing faulty devices reliably is difficult and expensive, research has shown. Often, manufacturers don’t reveal full servicing information or stop repairing old models, prompting consumers to buy new replacements, a practice known as planned obsolescence.
“The idea behind the right-to-repair initiative is to build a consumer-centric ecosystem to increase reparability and bring transparency through collaboration,” Nidhi Khare, additional secretary in the consumer affairs ministry, said at a media briefing. It can be accessed at https://righttorepairindia.gov.in.
Longer lasting products also “tie in with the World Consumer Rights Day 2023 being celebrated on March 15, themed ‘empowering consumers through clean energy transitions’”, Khare said.
India is estimated to have generated 5 million tonnes of electronic waste in 2022, ranking only behind after China and the US, according to an ASSOCHAM-EY report, titled ‘Electronic Waste Management in India’.
The portal has so far onboarded brands, such as Samsung, Honda, Kent RO Systems, Havells, Hewlett Packard and Hero MotoCorp. It also seeks to streamline trade between original equipment manufacturers and third-party sellers.
“In the West, this is an ongoing battle between firms and consumer-right activists, with governments becoming sensitive to a demand for reliable repairs,” said Sajid Ali of the Internet Consumers’ Forum, a Banglarore-based NGO. The European Union is in the process of establishing a right to repair with a view to save costs for consumers and facilitating a circular economy, Ali said.
In the US, President Joe Biden in 2021 had issued an executive order that “included a directive for limits on how tech manufacturers could restrict repairs”, according to a New York Times report.