Provide relief or face stir, hotel owners tell government

Bathinda, August 29

Irked over not getting any help from the Union and state governments during the Covid-19 pandemic, hoteliers in Bathinda have warned of starting a protest.

Punjab Hotel Association president Satish Arora today said for the first time in the history, the hospitality sector was seeing a situation where many hotels had been shut and many others were on the verge of closure in the state. Moreover, around 10 lakh workers had become jobless.

The owners of a large numbers of budget hotels in the state had to sack more than 80 per cent staff and were now staring at bankruptcy with unpaid bills running into lakhs of rupees, he added.

He said if the Punjab Government did not agree to their demands, they would stage a protest. Srora demanded that lease, licence, rentals and excise fee as well as property tax should be suspended from March 11 till the end of the pandemic. — TNS