Hoteliers express inability to revise property tax

Tribune News Service

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Bathinda, March 12

Representatives of the Punjab State Hotel Association met the Deputy Chief Minister of Punjab, Sukhbir Singh Badal, in Chandigarh on Wednesday evening. During the meeting, the hotel association representatives, headed by the president of the association, Satish Arora, took up the issue of the increase in property tax for the hotels.

Arora said the hotels were included in the industrial category in all states of India and the status was the same till 2014 in Punjab too. He added that, the state government had created a special category for hotels, which is above the commercial category and due to which the rate at which the hotel owners had to pay property tax had risen sharply from Rs 4 per square yard to Rs 72 per square yard.

They further added that the hotels could not pay the revised rates of property tax as it would result in a huge financial burden on the industry. They argued that since the industry was generating a lot of revnue for the state government, it should be brought back to the industrial category.

Following the deliberations, Deputy CM assured the hoteliers that they would not have to pay the revised tax this year. He also directed a five-member committee of the hotel association to meet him again by next week to elaborate on other problems ailing the hotel and tourism industry in the state.

Also present during the meeting were PC Aujla, Ashok Gupta, Anjali Bawra, Urmila Khosa, AP Singh, Rajidner Singh Marwaha, Rakesh Kumar, Gurmukh Singh, Surjit Singh, Tejpal Singh, Raj Kumar Sharma, Pradeep Aggarwal, Gurdeep singh Walia, Ravidra Jain, Subhash Chandra, Harpal Singh Walia, Amarjit Singh Jaggi, Rajesh Aggarwal, Tejpal singh Walia and others.