Paying your bill on a night out hasn’t become lighter on your wallet with the new guidelines by the central government, but it does give you a little more power over the establishment. The government, with the Food and Consumer Affairs Minister Ram Vilas Paswan at the head, has now given consumers the right to decide on how much of a service charge they wish to pay the establishment, or whether they wish to pay the charge at all. Earlier, many establishments levied a service charge, anywhere between five to twenty percent of the total value, making it mandatory for the customer to shell out a tip for the service. Now, it’s a voluntary charge. What this does it put the customer in charge of deciding whether the service was of the required quality or not. This will hopefully make establishments not take consumers for granted. There are also provisions for consumers to take establishments that force them to pay the charge to court. Obviously, restaurant and hotel associations aren’t impressed, but they have to realise that they cannot force consumers to tip the service staff. On the flipside, consumers have to also realise that tips form a substantial percentage of the income for service staff and hence tip adequately.
