The NRAI reasoned that Zomato and Swiggy fall under the ambit of the rules by citing the platforms' FDI funds and their recent moves to enter the grocery delivery market. The National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI), which represents over 5 lakh restaurants across India, appreciated the proposed amendments to e-commerce rules and suggested some modifications such as holding entities with significant market power responsible and not just ones that hold the dominant position, making restaurant-ranking policy clearly visible, disallowing promotions through loyalty programmes like Zomato Gold and Swiggy Super, and preventing the use of information collected on behalf of restaurants for the private gain of the platforms. Background: The government on June 21 proposed amendments that give the existing Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) Rules, 2020 more teeth. The changes include new rules to address abuse of FDI regulations, the establishment of a grievance redressal mechanism, new display and labelling criteria for foreign goods, the prohibition of flash sales, restrictions on promotions, fall-back liability, among other things. Read: Summary of the proposed amendments to E-Commerce Rules, 2020 Why it matters? In addition to covering platforms like Amazon and Flipkart, the proposed rules cover online food delivery services like Zomato and Swiggy as well. While many stakeholders have submitted feedback concerning the former, NRAI's submissions offer a different insight into the rules. NRAI recently asked the Competition Commission of India to look into the anti-competitive practices of Zomato and Swiggy. What NRAI submitted? Zomato, Swiggy covered under the rules: While the broad definition of e-commerce entities in the rules…
