ITDC offers free lunch if served late

New Delhi, July 9 (UNI) India Tourism Department Corporation (ITDC)-run hotels are to pull up their sleeves for better guest care assuring free food if it is served a second late.

Clients checking into ITDC hotels will be served their breakfast, dinner or lunch without charge if it is brought late than the prescribed half-an-hour needed for the service.

''We are enforcing discipline among our staff to serve our guests better,'' ITDC Chairman and Managing Director Pervez Dewan told UNI.

ITDC hotels have embraced a series of client-friendly initiatives including laboratory tests for hotel guests, laptops on rent and local mobile phones on arrival.

Guests could get pathological tests done at the hotel under a cost-effective plan aimed mainly at foreign tourists. ''The samples will be collected from rooms and the results will be given the next day,'' said Mr Dewan, who got the idea from an NRI guest.

The lab tests facility will be introduced in as many as 16 ITDC hotels across the country. ''The guests will be benefited because the charge for the tests will be included in the room rent,'' he added.

The facility will help the foreign tourists who pay a lot of money to get the tests done in their countries, said Mr Dewan. The tests, which cost 66 dollars included in the room rent, also include cardiology examinations.

The hotels in Mysore, Jaipur and Delhi will be offering the maximum lab test services because of the high tourist arrivals there, according to the ITDC chief.

Under the new initiatives, ITDC Club members will get internet facilities at the hotels as well as laptops and even gowns for lawyer-guests, who are in the town on business.

According to Mr Dewan, ITDC is in the process of increasing the capacity at hotels by adding extra rooms without encroaching on spaces like lawns. The work for additional rooms has already started at the capital's The Ashok and Samrat hotels.

UNI SH PV KN1540