ONDC Complaints & IGM: The Real Resolution Ladder

Two hours. That is how long the app you complained to has to at least say "we heard you." Almost nobody selling or buying on this network knows that number, so most people either panic early or give up too soon.

I run Kaarobari, a Seller App in the ONDC Network, out of Dhule in Maharashtra. We do not just talk about IGM — we run it live. We built the complaint APIs, and we sat through ONDC's own IGM functional-testing call, where they watch you resolve a real complaint end to end on your own system before you are allowed near real orders. So this is not a summary of a PDF. It is how the thing actually works when a customer is upset and money is involved.

Let me walk you up the ladder, one rung at a time.

What is IGM, in one honest paragraph?

On the ONDC Network, the shopping app, the seller's app, and the delivery partner are usually three different companies. That is the whole point of an open network — but it creates one hard problem. When a packet does not arrive, whose fault is it? The buyer never signed anything with the delivery company. So there has to be a shared, standard way to raise a complaint against a party you never directly dealt with, and route it to whoever can actually fix it.

That shared system is IGM. Think of it as a common complaint language every app on the network is required to speak, plus a set of timelines and an escalation path. It is not one company's helpdesk. It is a network-wide rulebook.

Diagram · Why IGM exists

The 3-level ladder (this is the part to remember)

A complaint does not sit in one place. It climbs, and each rung has a different owner and a different clock.

Diagram · The 3-level ladder

One honest note on those timelines: they are the network's standard targets, and they are what we work to. They are not a money-back guarantee from any single app, and our own disclosures page describes them as targets rather than hard commitments — because pretending otherwise would be dishonest. The real strength of IGM is not that every clock is always met. It is that when a clock is missed, you have a named next rung to climb, instead of a dead-end "please try again later."

How does a buyer raise a complaint?

You raise it inside the same app you ordered on — not with us, and not with ONDC directly. That app is the one you have a relationship with, so that is where your complaint starts its journey.

Open your order in the buyer app and look for "Issue", "Raise a complaint", "Help" or a support option on the order itself. When you file it, three things happen behind the scenes that you do not see:

1. The complaint gets a unique issue ID and a category — wrong item, item missing, late delivery, quality, billing, refund, and so on.
2. It is routed to the right party. A "packet never arrived" complaint reaches the seller app and, where delivery is the cause, the logistics partner.
3. The clock starts. The app owes you an acknowledgement within 2 hours and a resolution offer within 24.

Here is the part most people miss: a customer complaint about delivery can be cascaded down to the delivery company automatically. You complain once, to your app; the network carries it to the party who can actually answer. You do not have to hunt down the courier yourself.

How does a seller respond to a complaint?

If you sell with us, a complaint lands on your Orders / Issues screen in the dashboard, tied to the exact order. You are the respondent, and the same 2-hour / 24-hour expectation applies to you.

From there you can do a few real things, and each one actually changes the order — it is not just a status flip:

• Resolve it — accept a refund, send a replacement, or arrange a re-delivery. The resolution reflects back into the order and its settlement.
• Ask for more information — if you genuinely need a photo or clarification before you can act.
• Cascade it — if the fault is delivery, not you, the issue is passed to the logistics partner with the right level marked, so you are not held liable for a courier's mistake.

Screenshot · Seller dashboard → Issues

A word from our side, plainly. We keep the human in this loop on purpose. When a complaint comes in, a person reads it — not a bot auto-closing tickets to hit a number. That is slower to scale and, I think, the only honest way to run a grievance system for shopkeepers who cannot afford a lost customer.

What if the app does not resolve it? Meet the GRO

This is the rung people do not know exists, and it is your strongest lever.

Every Network Participant on the ONDC Network, meaning every buyer app and every seller app, is required to appoint and publicly name a Grievance Redressal Officer. Not a form. A real person, with a name, email and phone, published on the site. When a complaint escalates, that officer's details travel inside the escalation itself, so you always know exactly who is now responsible.

Kaarobari's GRO is Harshal Bhapkar. His contact is published on our disclosures page. And here is the part that matters: his details are also written into our escalation messages, not just parked on a webpage. The GRO's job is to look at a stuck issue, decide who is actually liable, and close it within about 7 days (one month is the legal outer limit).

Still not resolved? ODR and the consumer forum

Rare, but you should know the road exists.

If the GRO route does not settle it, the next rung is ODR — Online Dispute Resolution. Independent providers run it, in three stages: conciliation (a neutral person helps both sides agree), then mediation, then arbitration (a binding decision). Today this stage is handled off-protocol and manually; ONDC is building an automated ODR layer into the network.

Beyond that sits the ordinary consumer forum, exactly as it would for any purchase. IGM does not remove your consumer rights — it sits on top of them and tries to resolve things long before you ever need a forum. In practice, the overwhelming majority of issues end at rung one or two.

What kinds of issues does IGM actually cover?

More than "my order was wrong." The network defines clear categories, and knowing which one your problem falls under helps it route correctly.

Behind each complaint runs a simple lifecycle you can follow in the app: Open → Processing → Escalated (if needed) → Resolved → Closed. You are not meant to guess where your issue is. The status is supposed to tell you.

A real scenario, start to finish

Say a customer orders two 1kg packets of poha from a kirana shop on a buyer app, and only one arrives.

• Hour 0 — The customer opens the order in their buyer app, taps "Issue", picks "item missing", adds a line and the delivery photo. Issue ID generated.
• Within 2 hours — The complaint is acknowledged. It reaches the seller's dashboard, tied to that order.
• Same day — The seller checks the packing, sees only one packet went out, and resolves it with a refund for the missing packet. That refund reflects in the order and reverses the right slice of settlement — the shop is not charged commission on money it refunded.
• If the seller had disputed it — and it turned out the second packet was lost in transit, the issue would cascade to the delivery partner, and the shop would not carry the loss for a courier's error.
• If nobody had acted — the customer escalates to the GRO, who has ~7 days to decide and close it.

Notice what did not happen. The customer never had to find the seller's phone number, or the courier's, or ONDC's. One complaint, in one app, routed by the network to whoever could fix it. That is the whole idea working as designed.

Frequently asked

"Who do I complain to — the seller, the app, or ONDC?"

The app you ordered on. That is the party you have a relationship with, and it is required to acknowledge you within 2 hours and route your complaint. You do not chase the seller, the courier, or ONDC yourself — IGM does that routing for you.

"How long does an ONDC complaint really take?"

The standard targets are a 2-hour acknowledgement and a 24-hour resolution offer at the app level, and about 7 days if it escalates to the GRO. These are targets the network sets, not a guarantee from any one app — but each missed target gives you a named next rung to escalate to.

"I'm a seller and a customer is blaming me for a late delivery I didn't handle. What do I do?"

Cascade the issue. If the fault is delivery rather than your packing, IGM lets you pass it to the logistics partner at the correct level, so you are not held liable for someone else's step. Respond quickly and factually — do not ignore it, because ignoring it is what actually hurts your rating.

"My complaint isn't being resolved. What's next?"

Escalate to the Grievance Redressal Officer — a named human every participant must publish (ours is Harshal Bhapkar, on our disclosures page). Beyond the GRO sits ODR (outside mediation and arbitration), and beyond that the ordinary consumer forum. You are never at a dead end.

"Does someone charge a fee to resolve my ONDC complaint?"

No. Never. Raising and resolving a complaint through IGM costs you nothing. Anyone asking for money to "resolve your ONDC dispute" or "release your held order" is running a scam — report them and stop.

Related guides

Sources & official links

• ONDC Issue & Grievance Management (IGM): resources.ondc.org — the official framework, SLA ladder and GRO obligation
• ONDC Network Policy — grievance and disciplinary chapters: resources.ondc.org
• National Consumer Helpline — consumerhelpline.gov.in — the statutory consumer route that sits beyond ODR
• ⚠️ These are the only official sources. No genuine party on the ONDC Network ever charges you to raise, escalate or resolve a complaint. If someone asks for a payment to "fix your ONDC issue", it is a scam.
• Kaarobari's live IGM implementation (Issue & Grievance APIs, 1.0 + 2.0 cascaded flows) and our own ONDC IGM functional-testing walkthrough, August 2026.

Written by Tejas, founder of Kaarobari (NEXSOL INFOTECH PVT LTD, CIN U62099MR2026PTC474666, Dhule, Maharashtra) — a Seller App in the ONDC Network. We publish what we can verify, with dates. Our grievance officer is named and reachable on our disclosures page — as every participant's should be.