NEW DELHI: The Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) has taken suo motu cognisance of the large-scale illegal listing and sale of walkie-talkies (Personal Mobile Radios PMRs) on e-commerce platforms and imposed monetary penalties on leading online marketplaces for violations of consumer protection and telecom regulations.
The action follows the identification of over 16,970 non-compliant walkie-talkie listings across platforms. Notices were issued to 13 e-commerce entities, including Amazon, Flipkart, Meesho, JioMart, Meta (Facebook Marketplace), Talk Pro, Chimiya, MaskMan Toys, India Mart, TradeIndia, Antriksh Technologies, Vardaanmart and Krishna Mart.
The Authority found that several platforms were facilitating the sale of walkie-talkies operating on restricted and sensitive radio frequency bands, without mandatory statutory approvals or disclosures.
These devices were sold without informing consumers about:
- The radio frequency range on which the device operates;
- Whether the device requires a government licence; and
- Whether it has obtained Equipment Type Approval (ETA). It is a mandatory technical approval issued by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) to ensure that wireless devices are compliant, safe and permitted for use in India (WPC)
Many of these devices were found to operate in the Ultra High Frequency (UHF) band, which is a regulated spectrum also used by police, emergency services, disaster response agencies and other critical communication networks. Several products were wrongly advertised as “license-free” or “100 per cent legal,” even though their use requires government approval. In some cases, walkie-talkies were sold as toys but had very long communication ranges of up to 30 kilometres.
In addition, many product listings did not clearly mention important details such as the operating frequency or whether the device had Equipment Type Approval (ETA), making it difficult for consumers to know if the product was legal to buy and use.
Agencies