Early Times Report
JAMMU, Jan 30: All Jammu Hotels and Lodges Association (AJHLA) has expressed resentment for showing step motherly treatment by the government towards tourism sector particularly hotel industry.
In the meeting of office bearers of held today, the chairman AJHLA, Inderjeet Khajuria said that despite suffering huge losses due to Covid pandemic coupled with lockdowns, the hotel industry has not received any support from the government.
Pawan Gupta, president of the association expressed serious concern over the deteriorating conditions of Jammu hoteliers who are completely finished by the attack of two waves of COVID-19, are unable to bear the burden of third wave plus the load of lockdowns. So far as hotel industry is concerned, lockdowns being imposed now-a-days are not weekend but weeklong for hotel industry inviting cancellation of bookings and affecting single digit occupancy to zero and causing a lot of hardships to stakeholders for earning their livelihood.
Gupta humbly appealed to government to save this starving industry from vanishing by giving a financial package to budget hotel industry and exempt it from all government charges, viz., electricity, water, municipal charges till Jammu and Kashmir becomes covid free. It is pertinent to mention here that during first wave of covid pandemic, hotel industry was given meagre exemption in water and fixed electricity charges but no relief during second and third wave of pandemic.
Other office bearers present in the meeting were M L Sharma, Pritam Sharma, Anil Khajuria, H S Manhas, Baldev Raj, Sunil Suri, Swarn Singh, Sankul Gupta, Manpreet Singh, Varun Gupta and Nishant Gupta. |
