Hyderabad: Despite an improvement in its rate of clearing consumer cases — from 70% in 2021 to 103% in 2025— Telangana remained at the bottom of the charts in the Consumer Justice Report, 2026, released on Wednesday. With an overall score of 2.2 out of 10, the report put Telangana at the 19th place — last spot among all large and mid-sized states of India. While neighbouring Andhra Pradesh emerged at the top of the charts on this list, other southern states like Karnataka and Tamil Nadu too were ahead of Telangana with 4th and 11th ranks respectively.The Consumer Justice Report, released for the first time, assessed the capacity of redressal commissions in the country, while examining the institutional capacity of consumer dispute redressal systems at the state and district levels.Telangana’s low ranking, report indicated, is owing to several gaps in its consumer dispute redressal system. Not only did the state fail to provide details of cases pending for more than three years in the state consumer disputes redressal commission (SCDRC), but it was also among eight states that did not provide information on district commissions.The other issue: staffing. As per the report, Telangana has a 100% vacancy in the post of president of the SCDRC along with a 25% vacancy in district commission president’s post and 12.5% in district commission members’ posts.The state’s failure to provide information on women presidents, members and staff in the state commission for multiple years, and key details on budget allocation, utilisation, expenditure, mediation cases, Lok Adalat referrals and settlements, among other things, further impacted its ranking, the report indicated.Further, as per its data, Telangana has only 12 district consumer commissions for its 33 districts, even though the Consumer Protection Act, 2019 calls for at least one district commission in each district. Fifth in case clearance rateInterestingly though, Telangana recorded a case clearance rate (CCR) of 101% putting it fifth among the 19 large and mid-sized states. Tamil Nadu stood at the top of the board in this category with a CCR of 114.6%. The report noted that Telangana was among six states in this group that disposed of more cases than were filed before their commissions during the five-year period from 2020 to 2024. The other states were Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.Nationally, all states and UTs disposed of 88.5% of the total 7.64 lakh cases filed during this period. While Telangana’s CCR was low in 2021 and 2022, its performance improved sharply post that, the report stated with the CCR nearly doubling from 2022 to 2025 and remaining above 100% for three consecutive years.“We have inherited way too many cases than AP at the time of bifurcation. Further, there was no proper judicial appointment for two to three years. We also did not function during Covid-19. But things are being streamlined now. The pendency is being cleared at a rapid pace, and soon Telangana State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission will also be at a top position when it comes to redressals,” D Devender Rao, President, Bar Association, Telangana State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission“Be it the state commission or district commissions, there is a staff shortage, which is affecting our redressals and adding to pendency. Further, districts like Ranga Reddy are getting far too many cases and are in dire need of an additional bench. Recently, 500 cases from the district have been transferred to the Hyderabad commission. In line with Hyderabad, Ranga Reddy also needs one or two more benches,” V Gouri Shankar, honorary chairman of the Confederation of All Telangana Consumer Organisations (CATCO)
