After Central Government’s directive on service charge, city hoteliers resorted to tip boxes on tables
Many of the city restaurants have started adding one more piece to the tables since January. The addition of tip-jars has not only surprised, but has also become a source of nuisance to restaurant-goers.
After the Central Government directive that it's not mandatory to pay the service charge added in the bills of the restaurants, the city hotels started keeping tip boxes or jars on the table for customers. The Mumbai Grahak Panchayat has written to the Department of Consumer Affairs to direct restaurants to mend their ways.
A directive from the Consumer Affairs department which came in the month of January stated that paying the service charge was not mandatory as per the Consumer Protection Act, 1986. The city hoteliers had strongly reacted to the said directive. And to make up for the possible loss of service charge, hoteliers devised a method of making the customers pay the money nonetheless.
This caught the attention of th eMumbai Grahak Panchayat. Ramdas Gujarathi, President, Mumbai Grahak Panchayat said, "It's a hotel and not a temple where donation boxes are kept, and by keeping such boxes the hoteliers want to make the consumer pay the tip by force and not by its own will." The Consumer Forum also approached Ram Vilas Paswan, the Union Minister of Food and Public Distribution to look into such incidents of hoteliers.
"We have written to the Consumer Affairs Department for such tactics being used in the city hotels in the name of service charge," said Gujarathi.
"The consumer should willingly give the tip to the waiter or cook depending on their service. Before the directive, the hoteliers took service charge in the name of tip which was very wrong and also pinched the pocket of the patron," said Gujarathi.
Adarsh Shetty, President of Indian Hotel and Restaurant Association (AHAR) Mumbai, said, "We have not been informed about such incidents, and we have not asked our hoteliers to keep the tip boxes on the tables."
A recent online survey conducted by the Mumbai Grahak Panchayat revealed, 93 per cent – 2,129 respondents from 2,290 – did not want the hotels to include service charge in the bill while 71 per cent – 1563 from 2290 – said they will boycott such restaurants if they still include service charge to the bills. The respondents were from the age group of 18-60 across different states in the country.
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