Employees of Hotel Imphal protest against privatisation

Imphal, Oct 31 (UNI) The employees of The Hotel Imphal, run by the State Tourism department, have strongly opposed the State Cabinet's plans to privatise it on grounds that the hotel brings good revenue for the state.

''The hotel not only brings good revenue for the state government but also we fear that once this hotel is privatised we will lose our jobs,'' the employees alleged.

''The employees said the government should not try to convert a public hotel into a private hotel. Once privatised it will strictly follow one principle, profit,'' they have said.

The government had held poor service responsible for their decision to privatise the hotel and the employees claimed the hotel was providing the best service in Imphal.

Since its establishment in 1978, the hotel had been serving visiting Prime Ministers, VIPs and foreign dignitaries.

The hotel was generating huge amounts of money and was giving revenue to the state exchequer and during the last financial year it generated a revenue of around Rs 54 lakhs.

They said the rooms of the hotel lacked in proper servicing which was supposed to be provided by the government and the tariffs were too low, not enabling more people to be employed in the hotel, which was essential to meet the growing demand for service within the hotel.

UNI