Finally, after decades of looting mostly salaried people, the government has banned restaurants and hotels from charging service charges. What is strange is the manner the same was passed on to the customers for decades. Who was providing the ‘service’ the restaurant owner or the customer? So, how was the same so blatantly passed on to the customer? The question now is: what happens to all the service charges ‘appropriated’ by the owners all these years? The money is not theirs and has been illegally appropriated by them. Either the owners cough up the same to charity or the government recovers the same.
These owners are forever crying for relaxation in taxes despite this windfall. In 2019, the President of National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI) mentioned that: “Restaurant business in India is the largest service sector in India after retail and insurance and is 20 times of the film industry, 4.7 times of hotels and 1.5 times of the pharmaceutical sector.” According to him the food services market stood at Rs 309,110 crore. Thus, 10% of this works out to Rs 30,911crore! This is daylight robbery and money must be recovered.
