Union commerce minister Piyush Goyal is stepping in to resolve the Zomato-NRAI fight: Report

Union commerce minister Piyush Goyal is stepping in to resolve the ongoing tussle between food aggregators and the National Restaurant Association of India, reports the Economic Times. 

Goyal has asked the hotel body to list their concerns against aggregators, including the issue of deep discounts.

Zomato and NRAI have been publically fighting over the deep discounting issue since August, with the hotel lobby body even launching a #logout campaign against the food aggregator. Several rounds of discussions between the parties have failed to resolve the matter. 

NRAI has now received a communication from the ministry of commerce, asking it to list the concerns related to the aggregators, particularly deep discounts and data masking, Anurag Katriar, NRAI president, told the Economic Times. 

"The ministry is deeply concerned with the deep discounting being offered by ecommerce players that is hurting small businesses, restaurants being one of them," Katriar added.

Last week, the apex body of the hotel industry, Federation of Hotel and Restaurant Association of India (FHRAI), joined the NRAI in the #logout campaign against restaurant aggregators and food delivery platforms such as Zomato and Swiggy.

Thane Hotel Association, Pune Restaurants and Hotel Association and Vadodra Food ENtrepreneurs have also joined the movement, NRAI said in a statement.

In August, online food delivery platform founder and chief executive Deepinder Goyal had requested restaurant owners to stop the #logout campaign.