Terms & Conditions

1. What Ghar Dabba is

Ghar Dabba is a technology platform. We connect people who want home-cooked tiffins with independent home kitchens that cook them, and with delivery partners who carry them. We provide the ordering, scheduling, payment-handling and communication tools; the food business is the kitchen.

Ghar Dabba does not own the kitchens, does not prepare, store or handle any food, and does not employ the delivery partners. Every contract for a meal is between you and the kitchen you chose, and every delivery is performed by an independent partner. Where we approve a kitchen or a partner, that means we checked their application details — it is not a warranty about the food, the person, or the outcome of a particular order.

2. Accounts and eligibility

• You must be at least 18 and legally able to contract.
• One account per phone number per role. Sign-in is by one-time password sent by SMS.
• You agree to give accurate information and to keep it current.
• You are responsible for anything done on your account and for keeping your phone and one-time passwords secure.
• Kitchens and delivery partners must additionally hold whatever registrations their trade requires — for a kitchen that includes a valid food business licence.

3. Ordering, slots and plans

• Kitchens publish a menu, the slots they cook for, preparation time, minimum order, packaging fee and delivery fee. Those are the kitchen's, not Ghar Dabba's.
• An order is a request. The kitchen accepts or declines it; if it declines, nothing is charged and you are told so you can order elsewhere.
• Subscribing to a plan books recurring meals with one kitchen. You can pause or resume a plan, and pausing stops future deliveries without refunding meals already prepared.
• Prices and availability can change, and a kitchen can close a slot it cannot cook. We show you the price that applies before you confirm.

4. Payment

• Orders are paid in cash on delivery, or by UPI to the kitchen or delivery partner at the door. Ghar Dabba does not run a payment gateway and never holds card or UPI credentials.
• Amounts shown on the checkout screen are the amounts owed: food, packaging fee and delivery fee. There are no other platform charges to a buyer.
• Have the exact amount ready. The partner is not obliged to carry change, and a delivery that cannot be paid for may be taken back.
• You are responsible for your own taxes on what you buy or sell. Kitchens and partners are responsible for their own sales tax and income tax; we are responsible for ours.

5. Cancellations, refunds and disputes

• A kitchen can cancel an accepted order before it is collected; a buyer is told immediately and pays nothing for it.
• Once food has left the kitchen for you, it cannot be returned for hygiene reasons, so change of mind is not a refund ground after pickup.
• If a meal is wrong, late, or missing, report it in the app or to us the same day. We will not refund a meal reported after the day it was due.
• We mediate disputes between buyers and kitchens, and between kitchens and partners. Our decision on the amounts in our ledger is final as far as the platform is concerned; it does not limit any right you have under your local consumer law.

6. Food safety and allergens

The kitchen is responsible for what it cooks, including hygiene, ingredients, labelling, allergen information and food-safety compliance. You are responsible for telling the kitchen about allergies and dietary restrictions before you order — there is a place for it in the app, and a home kitchen cooking one menu for many people cannot guarantee a dish is free of an ingredient unless it says so. If you get sick, tell us and tell the kitchen the same day so the batch can be traced.

7. Home kitchens

• Apply through the Seller app with your real kitchen name, address, coordinates, menu, pricing and licence number.
• Every application is reviewed by Ghar Dabba before it can trade. We may approve, decline, or ask you to fix something. You cannot approve your own listing — the status field is not editable by you.
• Platform commission. Ghar Dabba charges the kitchen a commission on each order, currently 12% of the order value, shown in your earnings screen. We will give at least 30 days' notice before changing it.
• Cook what you listed. If you cannot fulfil an order, decline or cancel it early rather than substituting silently.
• Keep your menu, prices, slots and service radius accurate, and close slots you cannot cover.
• Do not move a buyer off the platform to avoid commission. The listing exists because we built it.
• We may suspend a listing for hygiene or safety concerns, falsified details, repeated unfulfilled orders, or abuse of the review system. You will be told why and how to appeal.

8. Delivery partners

• Apply through the Delivery app with your real details, your vehicle, and the ID we ask for. Applications are reviewed before you can claim a job.
• You are an independent contractor, not an employee of Ghar Dabba or of any kitchen. You choose when you are online and which jobs to take.
• Jobs are first come, first served. Claiming a ready job reserves it for you; a job already claimed by another partner cannot be taken by you.
• Your fee is the delivery fee the buyer paid, shown on the job before you claim it. Amounts are reconciled against the Ghar Dabba ledger, which is the record of what is owed.
• You can release a job before you collect the food. Once it is out for delivery you are committed to that drop.
• Update the status as you go — collected, on the way, delivered. A buyer waiting on a meal is waiting on you.
• Carry the exact change you can, handle food upright and covered, and do not open a sealed tiffin. If a drop fails, tell us the same day.
• Traffic, vehicle, insurance and any permit you need are yours. Ride legally and safely; we will remove a partner who endangers anyone.
• Cash collected on a cash-on-delivery order belongs to the kitchen or to Ghar Dabba as the ledger says. Settle it; a shortfall is treated as a serious breach.

9. Ratings and reviews

Buyers may rate and review the kitchens they order from. Reviews must be honest and about your own experience. Do not write reviews for a kitchen you never ordered from, do not post abusive or unlawful content, and do not offer or accept payment to change a rating. Kitchens may reply publicly but may not delete a buyer's review. We remove reviews that break these rules, and we do not tune a kitchen's average rating to keep a partner happy.

10. What you must not do

• Use another person's phone number, ID, food business licence or driving licence.
• Place fake, self-placed or collusive orders, or order to manipulate a ranking.
• Scrape, resell, or redistribute the listings, menus, prices or coordinates on the platform.
• Interfere with the apps, probe our security, or use a modified client.
• Use the apps to deliver anything other than the food you listed and ordered.
• Harass, threaten or discriminate against a buyer, kitchen, partner or Ghar Dabba staff.
• Open a new account to escape a suspension.

11. Your content and our intellectual property

The Ghar Dabba name, mark, apps and software are ours. You keep ownership of your kitchen's name, menu text, photographs and of your reviews, and by posting them you grant us a licence to display, store and promote them on the platform for as long as they are listed. Take them down when you want; we keep a copy only where the law or an open dispute requires it.

12. Availability and changes

We run on third-party infrastructure and do not promise uninterrupted service. We may add, change or withdraw features, fees, areas and listings, and we may require a new app version. We will give at least 14 days' notice for a material change that affects what you pay or earn, except where we must act immediately for safety or legal reasons.

13. Suspension and termination

You can stop using Ghar Dabba at any time. We may suspend or close an account for a breach of these terms, for unsafe or fraudulent conduct, for a request we cannot verify as coming from the account holder, or where we are legally required to. We will tell you why unless we are prohibited from doing so, and you can appeal to the address below. Money already owed to you on the ledger is settled; money you owe is due immediately.

14. Deleting your account

• Buyers: in the buyer app, under your profile.
• Kitchens and delivery partners: email us from your registered number and we will do it for you.
• Deletion ends the link to your login. Completed order records are retained as described in our privacy policy, because kitchens and the platform need a food-safety and accounting trail.

15. Disclaimers and liability

The platform is provided as it is. We do not promise that a kitchen will accept your order, that a meal will meet your taste, or that the service will be error-free.

To the maximum extent the law allows, Ghar Dabba is not liable for indirect or consequential loss, lost savings or lost business, and our total liability to you for anything arising out of these terms is limited to the platform commission we earned from you in the 30 days before the claim. Nothing in these terms limits liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, or for anything else that cannot lawfully be limited — and nothing here affects your rights as a consumer against the kitchen that sold you the food.

16. Indemnity

A kitchen indemnifies Ghar Dabba against claims arising from the food it prepares or sells, its registrations, and its conduct. A delivery partner indemnifies us against claims arising from how they drive, handle goods, or collect money. A buyer indemnifies us for losses caused by orders placed with information they knew was wrong.

17. Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of the country where you live. Subject to any right you have to approach a consumer forum where you live, the courts of that country have jurisdiction.

18. Changes to these terms, and contact

We may update these terms; the date at the top changes when we do, and material changes are announced in the apps before they take effect. Using Ghar Dabba after that is acceptance.

Grievance officer, Ghar Dabba: contact@ghardabba.com. Use the same address for support, disputes, and reports about a kitchen or partner.