Centre may soon decide the quantity of food served to you in hotels and restaurants

Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently expressed concern over the culture of food wastage in the country and described it as one of the social evils

By: News Desk |
April 11, 2017 10:36 am

In March’s edition of Mann Ki Baat, Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed concern over the culture of food wastage in the country and described it as one of the social evils. Nearly a fortnight after PM’s remark, the Central government is planning to fix portion sizes of dishes served to customers in star hotels and restaurants to control unchecked wastage of food.

The Food Ministry is drafting a questionnaire for hotels and restaurants to explain what dish sizes they should serve to a customer, reports Hindustan Times. “If a person can eat only two prawns, why should he or she be served six? If a person eats two idlis, why serve four! It’s wastage of food and also money people pay for something that they don’t eat,” Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, Ram Vilas Paswan was quoted as saying.

Reiterating PM Modi’s apprehensions over food wastage, Paswan said the ministry will soon issue instructions to these hotels about the amount of food to be served.

However, he also said that Dhabas that usually serve thalis will not come under its ambit, these rules will be only applicable for standard hotels.

This is in addition to a slew of pro-consumer measures, the ministry has incorporated in a new draft bill to amend Consumer Protection Act.

The new bill, that has earlier proposed to imprison celebs who appear in misleading advertisements, has now included a provision to jail the manufacturer of the product. Paswan said the ministry decided to drop the provision after taking a cue from similar laws to deal with misleading advertisement in other countries.

Under the new proposal, the punishment would range from a fine to cancellation of license to a jail term, depending on the frequency of the offence.