Mangalore Ranga Pai - Consumer Activist

Consumer Activist

During the years of the controlled economy India, when almost all services where provided by a Government owned monopoly, the services that could be availed by a consumer was either appalling or even non existent.

It was during this time when the term Consumer Rights was yet to gain popularity, that Pai was able to make a big impact. Services offered by the Indian Telephones, Indian nationalised banks and Indian Airlines among others began to face his ire. He started demanding good services for the customer at every available forum.

He was an honorary secretary of the All-India Bank Depositors' Association, through which he published the book Depositors’ Rights and Customer Service in Banks which provided the customer of a bank with information required to deal with the various problems faced by them.

The Indian edition of Reader's Digest, featured him on the cover of their October 1995 issue under the title M. R. Pai - Champion of the Consumer.

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