Get grants if you are hotelier

[Rishikesh]

If you are a hotelier and want to have money to renovate your hotel, government will give you money in "grant". Though the size size of scam is petty, it shows loot is being done. And if at all government want to promote tourism, it should promote folk artists/craftsmen, conserve environment. The tourist will come on their own and hotels will get enough business to renovate. And if tourist are not coming then what's point in renovating hotels. Tourist primarily do not come to tour hotels.

source url http://www.indianexpress.com/story/205860.html

Building or renovating a hotel room? So few that Govt will open its purse-strings for you

New Delhi, JULY 19: Offering a big bonanza to the hotel industry, the government has decided to provide grants up to Rs 1 crore to selected properties as it desperately tries to create a decent hotel infrastructure in the country.

The grant will be available for construction of new rooms in the one, two and three-star category hotels and refurbishment of old ones in heritage hotels, a Tourism ministry source told The Indian Express.

Heritage properties will be given Rs 3 lakh for each they upgrade or renovate. This will be subject to a maximum of Rs 1 crore for a single heritage property.

Two and three-star category hotels will get Rs 3 lakh for each room they construct. While a three-star hotel can get a maximum of Rs 1 crore, the upper limit in case of two-star hotel is Rs 75 lakh. For a one-star hotel, the figure is Rs 2 lakh per room constructed, subject to a maximum of Rs 30 lakh.

The ministry has earmarked Rs 20 crore for this proposal this year. The source said in case more money was required, the ministry could ask for a supplementary grant. The money would be disbursed after the construction or the renovation is complete following an assessment made by an inspection committee.

The offer for grants is yet another attempt by the Tourism Ministry towards reducing the acute shortage of hotel rooms in the country, particularly in view of the Commonwealth Games in 2010. In this year's budget, Finance Minister P Chidambaram had announced five-year tax-breaks for new star-category hotels and convention halls coming up in the National Capital

Territory region in the next three years.

After much prodding from the Tourism Ministry, which wanted this provision to be extended to hotels all over the country, the Finance Ministry agreed to provide similar tax-breaks for hotels coming up in the 19 districts that have places of Buddhist importance.

The Tourism Ministry has long been arguing that the shortage of hotel rooms is the biggest hurdle in the growth of tourism and hopes that this latest step will help in bridging the gap.

These grants are actually an interim arrangement and will be available for a period of one year pending the finalization of the Eleventh Five-Year plan. Once the plan is finalized, this provision will be extended to the full five-year period. The Planning Commission is expected to give its OK to this interim arrangement soon, sources said.

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