Alleging "anti-competitive practices" by Zomato and Swiggy, restaurant industry body National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI) on Monday said it has approached fair trade regulator Competition Commission of India (CCI) for a detailed probe against the food aggregators. Keeping the interests of restaurants in mind, NRAI on July 1 had filed information with the CCI, it said in a statement. The main issues highlighted by the association in the submission are bundling of services, data masking, and exorbitant commission charged, price parity agreements, deep discounting, including forcing restaurant partners to give discounts to maintain appropriate listing, exclusivity of listed restaurants, and violation of platform neutrality, vertical integration, and lack of transparency on the food ordering platforms.
A third of the total restaurant market in India - valued at Rs 4.25 trillion - could be wiped out in the current financial year, since many players have simply been unable to sustain operations in the absence of customers.
The plan is to start with 20-25 per cent capacity by early next month as part of Unlock 5.0, before moving to 50 and then 100 per cent.
The hospitality and tourism sector is among the worst hit because of the pandemic, and is unlikely to recover any time soon as people continue to be cautious of going out in a crowded places.
'We were taking the Starbucks experience from the store to the home.'
'The service charge is given to the employees as a part of their salary. Now, employees have been calling to negotiate their salaries to balance the loss that they will face personally. In which case, we won't be able to retain some of them.'