Centre orders online food operators to show break-up of all charges levied

The government on Monday asked online food business operators (FBOs) like Swiggy and Zomato to transparently reveal the break-up of all charges included in the order amount, such as delivery cost, packaging fee, surge pricing, and taxes and allow customers the choice to share their contact information with restaurants if approved.

The operators were also asked to submit a proposal within 15 days to improve their customer grievance redress mechanism.

The directives were given at a meeting chaired by Consumer Affairs Secretary Rohit Kumar Singh on Monday with major e-commerce food business operators to discuss issues that affect customers.

The meeting was called amid rising complaints from customers about unfair trade practices by online FBOs.

An official statement said that during the meeting, major issues raised by customers on the national consumer helpline were discussed, including veracity of the amount of delivery and packing charges and the reasonability of such charges, disparity between the price and quantity of food items shown on the platform and actually offered by the restaurant, inconsistency in delivery time, etc.

The statement also said that the National Restaurant Association of India, the apex body of restaurants in the country, said that customer information was not being shared by e-commerce FBOs with restaurants, impacting their ability to serve customer needs better.

The restaurant association also said that delivery charges are determined and levied by the latter.

E-commerce FBOs on their part observed that prices of food items are decided by the restaurants and they have a grievance redress mechanism in place that does have scope for improvement, considering the number and nature of grievances registered by customers.

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