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| Tourists all set to face problems as hotels, restaurants to observe shutdown on Oct 28, 29 | | | Jehangir Rashid
SRINAGAR, Oct 25: Tourists who are planning to come to Kashmir in the next week are set to face problems on account of accommodation and food as the hotels and restaurants registered with the two parallel hotel associations of Kashmir have decided to observe two day strike on October 28 and 29.
The decision to observe strike has been taken in opposition to the installation of individual Sewage Treatment Plant in the premises of the hotels. During the two day strike the hoteliers and restaurant owners will display banners 'Sorry-we are closed' at the various tourist destinations and other places where hotels are located. The hotel and restaurant owners had earlier threatened to close down their hotels if the state government went ahead with their 'suppressive policy' towards them.
"We have made it clear to the government and State Pollution Control Board that our industry will not install STPs. The government is obliged to install Common STPs under Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewable Mission (JNNRUM) scheme to cover entire commercial and domestic sectors for the safeguard of environment," said Faiz Bakshi, Convener Coordination Committee of KHARA and KHAROF, two parallel associations of hoteliers and restaurant owners if Kashmir.
The coordination committee meeting of KHARA and KHAROF was held here today where the hoteliers unanimously decided to close the hotels to protest government's inability to construct a common STP at tourist places. The hoteliers demanded that sealed hotels should be re-opened at Gulmarg and Pahalgam and urgent steps should be taken to prevent sealing of hotels at Srinagar and other places by adhering to the existing Government Policy under JNNURM for constructing common STPs.
Bakshi said hotels, guest houses, restaurants, through universally accepted conventional system for treatment of effluent and sewage disposal, have in place the required self constructed septic tanks and soakage pits which through drainage and sewerage systems are connected with the community Sewage Treatment Plants (STP'S) in some areas.
President, KHAROF G M Dug said the hotel industry has suffered huge losses during the past 23 years and the industry needs to be protected and not subjected to forced adherence to guidelines. Dug said it was illogical to compare them with metro cities like Mumbai and Delhi when for all practical purposes state is bracketed with North-East States where no guidelines of Pollution Control Board are applicable.
"It is not possible for hoteliers to install STPs on individual basis in a landlocked and geographically disadvantageously located state with temperature touching as low as minus 20 degrees Celsius at some tourist destinations," Dug said.
President, KHARA Showkat Chowdhary said Minister of Forest & Environment, Minister of Tourism and Culture and the Minister of Housing and Urban Development had decided in a meeting on May 16, 2011 that the STPs would be constructed by the Government and connected with drains and sewer lines. "The government has backtracked from its stand and there is no option left for us but to close down our hotels and restaurants for two days as a mark of protest," Chowdhary said. |
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