Government asks online food business operators to submit plans for improving complaint redressal

Vibha Sharma

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New Delhi, June 13

The Centre has directed major e-commerce food business operators (FBOs) to furnish the current framework as well as a proposal on improving the consumer grievance redressal mechanism within 15 days, according to an official statement.

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.

During the past 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. They include deficiency in services, delivery of defective / damaged product, delay in delivery, delivery of wrong product, non-veg food delivered instead of veg and vice-versa and charging more than MRP.

Officials said major issues raised by consumers on the helpline were discussed, including 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 National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI) raised the issue of customer information not being shared by the e-commerce FBOs with restaurants thereby impacting their ability to serve the consumer needs better and other issues.

Meanwhile, a statement issued by Swiggy stated, “We welcome the initiative by the Department of Consumer Affairs to discuss the grievances by consumers with regard to online food ordering. We are encouraged by the discussion between the key stakeholders in the food ecosystem. As participants, we agreed that food manufacturers and restaurants will have to work together to holistically address different aspects of the grievances raised.”