NEW DELHI: The Department of Consumer Affairs (MCA) on Monday directed e-commerce food business operators (FBOs) to show consumers the breakup of charges included in the order amount such as delivery and packaging charges, taxes, surge pricing etc.
Platforms must also show individual consumer reviews and refrain from showing only the aggregation of reviews, the department said. 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, it informed.
DoCA during a meeting chaired by Secretary, Department of Consumer Affairs, Rohit Kumar Singh with major e-commerce food business operators has also directed major FBOs to furnish the current framework as well as a proposal on improving the consumer grievance redressal mechanism within 15 days.
The National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI) had raised the issue of customer information not being shared by the FBOs with the restaurants, which impacts their ability to serve consumer needs better. Delivery charges are determined and levied by the latter. Further, a commission of around 20% is also charged by the online FBOs on each order, according to NRAI.
“The FBOs observed prices of food items are decided by the restaurants and they have a grievance redressal mechanism in place which does have a scope for improvement considering the number and nature of grievances registered by consumers,” MCA said,