By Meenakshi Verma Ambwani
Copyright thehindubusinessline
The National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI) is finalising a strategic MoU with Open Network Digital Commerce (ONDC), which is expected to be signed this week.The restaurant industry is also hoping to see strong recovery in the coming months aided by higher disposable incomes on the back of recently announced GST reforms.
Sagar Daryani, President, NRAI told businessline, “ We have worked on a framework and the MoU is designed in a way that the responsibilities of NRAI, ONDC, the buyer apps and seller apps are defined. ONDC has several parts to it and we want everyone to be on the same page. So, together we are taking some bold steps to grow the food delivery business. We are also signing an MoU with Rapido with a focus on transparent commission policy and commercial structures.”
The NRAI is hosting the India Restaurant Summit this week in Goa with its AGM scheduled for September 17, where deliberations on industry matters and signing of MoUs will be taken up. ONDC , which aims to democratice e-commerce, offers lower commissions to restaurants. Meanwhile, Ride-hailing Rapido forayed into food delivery service this year and is being seen as the third key player in what has largely been a duopoly of Zomato and Swiggy.
“In the last two years, the industry has been witnessing slowdown with many players reporting negative same store sales growth. Since July this year, the industry has begun witnessing an uptick. With the recently announced GST reforms, we believe there will be more money in the hands of the consumers, which will lead to demand generation which will boost overall consumption,” he added.
However, restaurants will not get any input tax credit on the goods and services that they buy, which has been a key demand of the industry body. At the same time, GST rates for e-commerce food delivery services will attract 18 per cent GST.
As per estimates by the NRAI released in 2024, the Indian food services industry is expected to grow at a CAGR of 8.1 per cent to ₹7.76 lakh crore by 2028.
Published on September 15, 2025
