On Thursday, the restaurants were told by the Ministry of Consumer Affairs not to levy ‘service charge’ on bills, calling this move ‘illegal’. Additionally, the Ministry also said that a legal framework will soon be formulated that will disallow such hospitality establishments to add the service charge. The motive to plan this move is to protect the consumers’ interests.
On Thursday, the hospitality industry association Federation of Hotel and Restaurant Association of India (FHRAI) was called by the Department of Consumer Affairs (DoCA) for a meeting to discuss this issue of the restaurant bills.
The basis of this move by the ministry was on all those grievances that were registered by the consumers over the national consumer helpline about restaurants that collected service charges through the customers by default.
However, the National Restaurant Association of India has stated that “After a customer is made aware of such a charge in advance and then decides to place the order, it becomes an agreement between the parties, and therefore is not an unfair trade practice.”
