Tourism industry seeks concession from govt

Tribune News Service

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Dharamsala, April 4

The Hotel and Restaurant Association of Dharamsala has demanded concessions from the state government. At present, there are about 700 registered hotels and about 350 homestays in Kangra district.

To contain the spread of Covid, all hotels and other tourism facilities have been shut since March 20.

The president of the association said small hoteliers and guest house owners had been taking care of the staff since the lockdown.

“Hoteliers are small, medium and micro enterprises. Residents of Himachal have raised the tourism infrastructure with financial assistance from banks. Due to the closure of hotels, they are under a huge financial pressure. In this difficult time, we are concerned about the financial viability of tourism units as well as the staff engaged in hotels. We request the government help us,” he said.

The hotel association of Kangra has demanded that the government should create a staff retention corpus to pay salaries of the staff during the lockdown period and 50 per cent of the same for six months after the business resumes. Wages to the employees, who are covered under the ESI scheme, may be paid out of the ESI corpus for the days of forced leave of the employees, it has stated.

Electricity bills for the period hotels remain closed should be waived and in the subsequent six months, bills be made as per domestic rates. Demand charges on account of connected load should be completely exempted for the lockdown period and the subsequent six months, the association has demanded.

The association has also demanded that house tax, water charges, garbage collection charges and fee under the pollution Act should be waived. To ease the requirements of the working capital, hotels should be allowed to retain GST collected in the current year. It may be paid in instalments in the subsequent year, the association said.

The association also demanded that the bar licence fee for the lockdown period be waived and minimum uplift quota clause for the bars be dispensed within the current financial year.

All contributions on account of the EPF and the ESI be borne by the government for 12 months, the association demanded.