Govt asks Swiggy, Zomato to be transparent on charges

New Delhi, June 13: The government on Monday asked online food business operators (FBOs) like Swiggy and Zomato to submit a proposal within 15 days on improving their consumer grievance redressal mechanism amid rising complaints from customers.

The Department of Consumer Affairs directed e-commerce FBOs "to transparently show consumers the breakup of all charges included in the order amount such as delivery charges, packaging charges, taxes, surge pricing, etc."

According to an official statement, "The Department of Consumer Affairs has directed major e-commerce food business operators to furnish the current framework as well as a proposal on improving the consumer grievance redressal mechanism within 15 days."

The direction was given during a meeting chaired by consumer affairs secretary Rohit Kumar Singh with major e-commerce food business operators to discuss pertinent issues which affect consumers in this sector.

The meeting was attended by online food business operators, including Swiggy and Zomato as well as the NRAI.

The department pointed out that during the last 12 months, "over 3,631 grievances have been registered on the National Consumer Helpline (1915) for Swiggy and 2,828 have been registered for Zomato".

These platforms were directed to show individual consumer reviews transparently and refrain from showing only the aggregation of reviews.

During the meeting, major issues raised by the consumer on National Consumer Helpline were discussed.

These issues included "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 the delivery time shown to consumers at the time of placing an order and the time at which the order is actually delivered, and absence of any mechanism to separate genuine reviews from fake ones," the statement said.

The National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI) raised the issue of customer information not being shared by the e-commerce FBOs with the restaurants, which impacts their ability to serve the consumer needs better. Further, delivery charges are determined and levied by the latter. Also, a commission of around 20 per cent is also charged by the online FBOs on each order.

"It was emphasised that the right of choice for a consumer should be respected..," the statement said.