The National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI) on Monday sent a letter to major online food delivery aggregators Zomato, Swiggy, FoodPanda and UberEats addressing its concerns about the deep discounting and lack of transparency prevailing in the sector. The restaurant authority said that the action was taken on a lieu of several complaints received from members, association and eating joints from all over the country.

The NRAI directed the delivery aggregators to do away with the concept of deep discounting as this practice is having a deep impact on the growth and sustainability of many small sized and even large chains.

Anurag Katriar, the head of NRAI Mumbai branch, said, “There is a very strong demand to immediately extend the logout movement to the online delivery vertical as well. However, as a responsible industry body, we want to actively engage with these delivery aggregators to find a solution.”

Under the #Logout campaign at least 2,000 restaurateurs have already delisted themselves from the privileged dine-in programmes which were made available by the food tech companies.

In the letter by the NRAI, the association has advised the four entities to resolve the concerns raised by these standalone restaurants and come at a common understanding with these small players.

“We are not against the technology platforms, but our concerns are largely around these aggregators misusing their dominant position to indulge in predatory behaviour; commercially and in forming the terms of engagement,” added Katriar.

NRAI believes that the food delivery aggregators have distorted the marketplace through the custom of deep discounting and data masking.