Apropos ‘Laws, not guidelines, needed to enforce service charge norm’ (July 7), the National Restaurant Association of India is correct in stating that laws are necessary and no guidelines will work , in the issue of levy of service charges by the restaurants/hotels.

But the association should also clarify as to why service charges have to be additionally paid by the people in addition to the bill amounts. After all , the hotel industry prepares the cost component and arrives at the final amount which the customer pays.

So why another amount in the name of “service charges” is being levied when there is no other service being rendered to the customer? The common man's understanding of a “tip” is different which the customer may or may not wish to pay which is solely his discretion. Charging a “service charge” cannot be the discretion of the restaurant owner and if it is so, the owner should prominently display in a board the additional service charges that will be added to the bill amounts for the customers’ notice.

Katuru Durga Prasad Rao

Hyderabad

Start-ups and crowdfunding

With reference to” How about crowdfunding for start-ups?” ( July 7), the suggestive fund raising mode through equity or peer to peer lending platforms, though viable in the present scenario, the underlying intricacies involved, both from the point of view of investor and the beneficiary entities should be critically analysed.

The start-up ecosystem, to create the much needed socio-economic impact opened up CSR activities by both private and public entities, encouraged more social ventures to enabling resource back up through crowdfunding , tax sops etc.

Besides extending the trading support through separate platforms of stock exchanges and bringing changes in the private placement regulations etc, the ideal way for effective implementation of the novel idea could be to anoint agencies akin to mutual fund AMCs, to ensure robust investment mechanism and de-risk the investor in such funding in the unlisted entities.

Sitaram Popuri

Bengaluru

Oil price cap

Apropos news report ‘India not inclined to accept G7 plan to cap Russian oil price’ (July 7), it is a bit disturbing that the recently concluded summit decided to explore the option of imposing a ban on sale of Russian oil. G7 wants to put a spoke in Russia’s earnings in view of the ongoing conflict with Ukraine.

Post the Ukraine war, Russia has been selling crude oil to India and China at subsidised rate which the EU nations are against.

Any further ban by the G7 group would send the global prices skyrocketing, as developing nations will be forced to buy the higher priced oil which will have a cascading effect on internal economies of countries concerned including India, which has relied heavily on Russia in importing crude oil.

RV Baskaran

Chennai

Political feud affects poor

Apropos “Quality, not Centre’s non-buying rice the issue” (July 7) is purely the fall out of political feud between the Centre and Telangana, where the sufferers are the poor.

Telangana’s decision to withdraw PMGKAY, a central government scheme, to distribute free food grains to the needy and allow it to rot, no doubt is a retrograde move. Same was the case when Centre introduced farm crop insurance (PMFBY), which was rejected outright by a few States who intended rolling out State-designed crop insurance scheme, which never took-off due to unaffordable financial burden, who later turned back to the Centre.

Holding people to ransom due to political rancour is undemocratic and must be put to an end forthwith.

Rajiv Magal

Halekere Village (Karnataka)

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