Swaraat Editor Desk
Few months ago, Kannan, a native of Srirangam has raked up a much-needed controversy about restaurants and food delivery app. He subtly pointed out that the app is charging more for food items than the price at the restaurants. The post attracted more than 3 million views in a Social Media site, many argued supporting the difference in the price, some claim it to be a business model, let’s delve deep into the issue.
When GST was introduced, restaurants in Tamil Nadu protested against the slab of 18% levied for AC dining, though they increased the prices of food items. they forced the govt to reduce it to current 5% with a rider asking them to pass on the benefit to customers, but they didn’t implement the recommendations and didn’t roll back the prices thereby benefitting from both slab change and price rise.
On the other hand, food delivery apps stirred controversy agonizing customers like ‘food has no religion but apologizing for serving non-halal food to a customer belonging to specific religion. But they have delivered non-veg food to veg customers without much remorse. There are cases where food delivering guys have eaten customer orders.
It is unfair to charge AC dining charges for take away as the customers are not using the facility to dine, there are court directives to avoid levying service charges for take away. The only service a food delivery app does is delivering food, they are free to fix a price for that service, distributing the charges by adding a portion of it in every food item’s price is unethical and calling it a business model lacks sensitivity. Government should reign in to regulate the food delivery market to make it consumer friendly! Government should not only make rules but also monitor its effective implementation.