Haryana yet to embrace direct selling guidelines

Vijay C Roy

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, September 10

Haryana may have taken a lead in manufacturing and IT sector as compared to other northern states, but as far as the regulation of direct sellers is concerned, it is yet to embrace model guidelines on direct selling.

Set up monitoring committee, says IDSA

The state can set up a monitoring committee to supervise the activities of Direct Selling companies. We can assist the government so as to ensure the industry realises its full potential — Vivek Katoch, treasurer, Indian direct selling assn

Punjab had notified the Direct Selling Guidelines last year while Himachal adopted it in 2019, thereby becoming the first state in the region to embrace it. The notification of guidelines filters out fraudulent players, thus protecting the interest of consumers and help serious players to grow.

In 2016, the Department of Consumer Affairs had notified the Direct Selling Guidelines as guiding principles for state governments to regulate direct selling and multi-level marketing. Accordingly, over two dozen states adopted these guidelines.

Direct selling model involves selling products directly to the consumers at their doorsteps. Besides being a source of income for educated manpower, it opens a plethora of opportunities for MSMEs.

Currently, the northern states contribute around 28% to total sales of the direct selling industry followed by eastern India (26%) and western India (23%).

Haryana generated gross direct selling sales of Rs 782.8 crore in 2019-20. There are 1.5 lakh active direct sellers in the state out of which nearly 55,000 are women. In the northern region, Haryana is currently at the second place after Uttar Pradesh. 

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