My Story: A Bengaluru Restaurant Charged Me Rs 90 For A Water Bottle With MRP Rs 20

A week ago, Ravi Valdiya and his friends went to Asia Kitchen Koramangala (By Mainland China), a posh restaurant in Bengaluru’s Koramangala area, for dinner. After their meal, when the bill was handed over, they were shocked to see that for five packaged mineral water bottles, they were charged Rs 450. But the MRP (Maximum Retail Price) printed on the labels of each of the bottles was only Rs 20.

Each of those Rs 20 bottles was charged at Rs 90. But this was not all. Since the bill did not include any taxes, an extra 14.5% VAT was added to this amount. He posted about it on his timeline. When The Logical Indian spoke to the Legal Metrology Department, we were informed that their teams regularly conduct checks across the state. If anyone finds such discrepancies in Karnataka, they are advised to call 080-22265644/080-22253500 or send an email to [email protected]. Their grievances will be addressed within two working days.

Ideally, the customer should have been charged Rs 20, which is the MRP and then on the MRP, taxes like Service tax, Service charge, Swachh Bharat cess and VAT can be levied. But here the restaurant exaggerated the MRP from Rs 20 to Rs 90 which is wrong and illegal.

We often see water bottles charged above the MRP in many places, and customers pay for this thinking it is legitimate to charge so. On 20 April 2016, Union Minister Ramvilas Paswan urged consumers to file a complaint and said, “There is a lack of awareness among consumers on such issues. Be it cricket stadium or five-star hotel or airport, if consumers see they are being charged more than MRP for packaged drinking water they should file a complaint. We will take strict action.”

This is just not a single case, many restaurants all over the country are overcharging their customers. The Logical Indian community reached out to us with complaints about the same.

This was sent by Pritam Das:

This was sent by one our members who did not disclose their name.

The Logical Indian thanks the community members for bringing this to light and taking it to authorities. We urge citizens to never to pay more than MRP and to file a complaint with the authorities. We request the aforementioned restaurants to look into the matter and issue an explanation on the same. Consumers can register the complaints on the consumer helpline website.

If you too have a similar story to tell, send us your story at [email protected], we would do our best to spread awareness and help resolve the issue.

Also read: Hyderabad Hotel Pays Rs 20,000 As Fine For Overcharging Rs 20 On A Water Bottle