HYDERABAD: Come August 1, all packaged food items including water bottles, cold drinks, chips and others will be sold at the Maximum Retail Price (MRP) in all multiplex food courts and single screen theatre canteens in the city.
The controller of State Legal Metrology department Akun Sabharwal directed multiplex theatres to this effect at a meeting held here on Tuesday. Currently, the packaged goods are being sold at exorbitant prices, 200 per cent more than the MRP mentioned on the food items or water bottles.
Thus movie-goers had either to gulp down their anger and pay the price or to avoid buying food items at cinema theatres. When a movie-goer walks into the foyer where food items are sold, the thick aroma of different flavours of popcorn draws him or her towards cash counters. Since popcorn is not a packaged item that mentions the MRP, people would have to shell out the price the vendors demand at theatres. Hereafter, food items will not be sold in small, medium, big and jumbo categories but the weight of the food item will be mentioned from July 25.
And from August 1, the prices of the items too should be mentioned. In the case of cold drinks from vending machines, they should be sold at MRP of the same volume. For instance, if a particular beverage of 250 ml is sold at `20, the same quantity of it from vending machine should be sold at the same price. If people find that the rules are not adhered to, they can lodge the complaint on toll-free No 180042500333 or WhatsApp No.7330774444.