Sincerely thanking State Government for granting ‘Industry Status’ to Hotels in Maharashtra from 1st April 2021, the hoteliers body, Nagpur Residential Hotels Association (NRHA) reiterated relief request with memorandum dispatched to Uddhav Thackeray – Chief Minister, Aaditya Thackeray – Tourism Minister and Valsa Nair Singh – Principal Secretary, Ministry of Tourism, Mumbai.
A delegation of NRHA led by its president Tejinder Singh Renu also submitted a memorandum to Prashant Sawai – Deputy Director MTDC Nagpur and held discussion.
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Tejinder Singh Renu said that although this industrial status policy is good, but it has a condition that all hotels should have been registered / classified before the Ministry of Tourism, New Delhi to gain advantages of such status. And as per present status, almost 90% of the hotels & lodges are not classified nor registered before the Ministry of Tourism, so under such circumstances they’ll be facing extreme hardship in obtaining the advantages out of Industrial Status. So as proposed in the draft policy, it should be ensured that all hotels and lodges get registered by some mechanism / through the Committee proposed to enable them to gain advantages of industrial status.
Renu also submitted that even after gradual relaxations, the hospitality sector is in extremely bad shape with room occupancy averaging just 15-20%. With such occupancy, it’s impossible to maintain breakeven due to high & fixed running costs of hotels. Furthermore, with restrictions in travel, our occupancy further gets a harsh blow down with drastic drop in customers. Restaurants are reporting massive drastic drop in revenues due to closure timings of 10 pm in Nagpur.
NRHA further requested the State Government to grant waiver of property tax for 6 months (April to September 2020) as this amount is considerable and being hotel units closed, hoteliers are burdened with other fixed expenditures. Likewise Excise License fee waiver or extension of Excise Fees paid for bars for the lockdown period. Appropriate amendment be carried in Maharashtra Municipal Corporation Act, whereby industrial tariff is introduced thereby hotels get advantage in Property Tax after industrial status is implemented from 1st April 2021. Electricity Charges during the lockdown period for Hotels and Lodges needs to be subsidized drastically as bills came in very high amounts despite the properties remaining totally closed. And importantly, whenever fresh lockdown is planned, please consider the already very bad condition of the hospitality sector and kindly keep separate mention / exclusion in fresh lockdown orders.
Also present in NRHA delegation were Prakash Trivedi – IPP, Inderjeet Singh Baweja – Vice President, Deepak Khurana – Secretary and Vinod Joshi – Treasurer.
