Zomato’s ‘Kachra’ Ad Campaign Now Under Scheduled Castes Commission Radar

Foodtech giant Zomato has received a notice from National Commission of Scheduled Castes over its controversial ad campaign for World Environment Day.

Seeking details of actions taken over the issue, the commission said in the letter that it would further investigate the matter. Reportedly, the letter was addressed to Zomato founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal, resident grievance office of YouTube in India.

Further, the panel has sought details on the nature of crime, name of address and victim, FIR date and charges levelled, and compensation to the victim.

In case the commission does not receive a reply from Zomato within the stipulated time, it may issue summons for appearance.

The controversial ad was released on World Environment Day on June 5 and featured actor Aditya Lakhia, better known for playing the role of ‘Kachra’ in the movie Lagaan.

The ad revolved around the play on the word Kachra (trash), drawing parallels between the name of the character in the movie and plastic waste. The ad film featured Lakhia who was seen impersonating various objects including a human jacket, lamp and hand towel to emphasise the amount of plastic used in making these objects.

With this campaign, Zomato wanted to promote the recycling of plastic waste, highlighting the foodtech major’s claim of having recycled 2 Cr kg of plastic so far. However, as things did not go well, Zomato delisted the ad campaign from all social media platforms.

Many social media users including Indian film director Neeraj Ghaywan, took to Twitter to voice caste discrimination allegations in the video.

“On World Environment Day, our intent was to spread awareness about the potential of plastic waste and benefits of recycling in a humorous way. Unintentionally, we may have hurt the sentiments of certain communities and individuals. We have taken down the video,” Zomato said in a statement after it received criticism.

This is not the first time Zomato has been dragged into a controversy for an ad campaign. Last year, an ad featuring Hrithik Roshan was taken down after many accused it of hurting religious sentiments.

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