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| Funds earmarked not utilized, staff too old, State yet to decide on take over | | Wailing Centaur Hotel Srinagar! | | Syed Junaid Hashmi
JAMMU, Feb 16: None seems to be serious for reviving the infamous Centaur Hotel in Srinagar as the funds earmarked for the same have not been utilized so far.
Neither has the staff been recruited nor is Government interested in reviving the hotel. The average age of the employees of the Centaur Hotel, Srinagar, ranges from 52 to 54 years. With such high age profile of the staff, hotel is not in a position to put up a good show which can be done by a smart set of employees ready to put the best foot forward.
Non-recruitment of staff for several decades due to persistence of disturbance in the State has proved to be a drag on the future progress of the hotel. It is sad that no effort has been taken to place a proper plan to recruit young people to manage affairs of the hotel. These observations have been made by Parliamentary Standing Committee looking after the working of the Union Ministry of Civil Aviation.
They have said that more funds out of the corpus earmarked for the Air India may be used for renovation and upgradation of the facilities of the Centaur Hotel in Srinagar. It has expressed displeasure over the fact that many of the rooms of the hotel have been occupied by the security forces and other officials while adding that in the changed scenario marked by improved law and order situation and greater flow of tourists to Jammu and Kashmir, it is important to make all the rooms available to the tourists.
In the peak tourist season it is almost impossible to get a room in the Kashmir valley, the committee has said. It has added that against this backdrop that urgent measures must be taken to vacate the rooms occupied by security officials so as to make them available for rising number of tourists. Committee has noted that on earlier years the money allocated to the hotels run by the Hotel Corporation of India (HCI) was not fully utilized.
For instance out of the Rs. 15 crores allocated to each of the hotels located in Delhi and Kashmir for the year 2010-11 and 2011-12 only slightly more than 10 per cent were utilized. It is rather shocking that money allocated are not being fully utilized by HCI which is deficient in cash and because of which its hotel infrastructure is much below the bench mark seen in the expanding hospitality sector.
In peeping into its history the Committee found that the hotel, after its establishment in 1984, did not get any business worth the name as the State of Jammu and Kashmir faced turmoil and disturbance for almost two decades arising out of terrorism and terrorist related violence. No steps were taken to renovate the hotel due to such intractable problems. In face of a hopeless situation of lawlessness, hotel sustained itself with meager business provided by certain Government agencies.
Taking into account the low business turn out, the Government of India contemplated to hand over the property to the State Government. However, a final call on this matter is yet to be made. Notwithstanding the organizational issues, there appears to be a positive aspect for CLVH, Srinagar, as Kashmir valley has once again begun to attract tourists from across the world as tensions seems to have alleviated.
Timely upgradation of the facilities by utilizing Rs. 5 crore which has been allocated in the outcome budget of the Ministry for the year 2012-13 would definitely help the hotel to cash in on this spurt in tourism and shore up its fortune. The Committee notes that the HCI is confident that the hotel would be able to manage itself financially and make profit by utilizing the amount earmarked in the outcome budget.
However, the hopeful note of the HCI and its positive feeling of turning around the Centaur Hotel in Srinagar has to be appreciated in the context of certain hard facts vis-a-vis the maintenance of the hotel rooms. The average expenditure on maintenance of hotel room is Rs 53 per day. The average income per room is Rs. 2823 per day. Incidentally 55 rooms are occupied by the office of the Accountant General with per day room rent of Rs. 1200. |
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