On Monday, the centre passed the law in favour of the consumers who face bad service issues at the restaurants and get to pay the service charges. On this National Restaurant Association of India countered on this saying customers are free not to eat and avail the services of the restaurant if they do not wish to pay for the service charges.
Earlier also, government had made clarifications that, authorities may act on the matter of levying service charges if charged without the consumers’ consent as it comes under “unfair trade practices”. NRAI is a body which representing independent chains and restaurants, promptly mentioned that, “putting service charges is a very “common and accepted practice” and is “recognised as such” by different government departments.
As per the statement of Union Consumer Affairs Ministry on Monday, restaurants and hotels have been asked to display this new norm that service charges are optional affair. Justifying their decision, the ministry mentioned, this has been taken into account to cater to the complaints of the consumers who complained that in spite of the bad services, they had to pay the service charges. This have been done to earn the extra tips from the customers which range from 5% to 20% “, saying “irrespective of the kind of service provided”. The ministry mentioned that the Hotel Association of India, when asked for some clarification, clarified that a “service charge is completely discretionary” and a customer could have it waived.
A restaurant runner mentioned that, “The diner might say the entire meal was nice but the salad was bad. What are we supposed to do in such a scenario? Most complaints we receive are about higher taxes and not service charge. The government didn’t waive taxes but waived service charge that diners happily paid”.
This is not the matter of concern for five-star hotels, because these are mostly levied by the standalone restaurants.
