Mumbai. The Department of Consumer Affairs (DOCA) of the Central Government, in a meeting held with the National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI) on Thursday, has asked not to levy service charge. Actually, in restaurants across the country, customers are asked to add service charge to the food bill. Considering this service charge as wrong, the government has directed not to collect it. The government can bring rules on this soon.

Consumers being forced to pay service charge

Consumer affairs secretary Rohit Kumar Singh in a letter to the NRAI president had pointed out that restaurants and eateries were collecting service charge from consumers by default, even though such collection is voluntary. The secretary had pointed out that consumers were being forced to pay service charge often fixed at arbitrarily high rates by restaurants. The secretary added consumers were being ‘falsely misled’ on the legal standing of such charges and harassed by restaurants when they asked for these to be removed from the bill.

What is service charge?

When you buy a product or service, you have to pay some money for it. This is called service charge. That is, a service charge is taken from the customer for serving food and other services in the hotel or restaurant. Customers also pay the hotel or restaurant without question and answer along with the service charge. However, this charge is levied only at the time of transaction and not at the time of availing service.

Service charge is charged at some percentage of the bill

The service charge is mentioned at the bottom of your hotel or restaurant bill. This can usually be a percentage of your bill. Mostly it is 5%. That is, if your bill is Rs 1,000, then this 5% service charge will be Rs 1,050.