The Hindu Business Line : Hospitality sector ‘unaware’ of infrastructure tag

The Government has accorded infrastructure status to the hospitality industry almost two months ago, but most players in the sector are unaware of this development.

Addressing a meeting of the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) India Initiative, the Tourism Secretary, Mr Sujit Banerjee, said, “The Government provided infrastructure status to the hospitality sector in September. The provision is available to promoters and not developers of hotels. It is available for all star-category hotels, be it a five-star or a one-star hotel.”

The industry, however, claimed that the Government has merely made some changes but not yet accorded infrastructure status to the industry.

The Chairman and Managing Director of Pride Hotels, Mr S.P. Jain, told Business Line: “We have been asking for infrastructure status for a very long time. It has still not come. Only Reserve Bank of India has exempted us from commercial real estate category, but that is different from being given infrastructure status.”

Mr Rashesh Shah, Analyst, ICICIdirect.com, said with the exclusion of the hotel industry from commercial real estate by the Reserve Bank of India, hotel companies can now get a benefit of 70-80 basis points in interest rates while availing of loans.

Earlier, participating in the round table, the Union Minister for Roads, Transport and Highways, Mr Kamal Nath, mooted the idea of the Government setting up an empowered Group of Ministers or a Cabinet Committee to look at the problems being faced by the tourism sector.

“I will suggest to the Minister for Tourism and also request the Prime Minister to consider setting up a cabinet committee on tourism, ” he added.