Tax incentives for building low budget hotels mooted

New Delhi, Dec 15 (UNI) The Ministry of Tourism has urged the Finance Ministry to give tax incentives and concessions to those building budget hotels of one, two and three star category before the 2010 Commonwealth Games to be held here.

''I am pushing forward this proposal to the Finance Ministry,'' Minister for Tourism Ambika Soni said while replying to a discussion on Low Budget Hotels in the Lok Sabha today.

Quoting a survey, she said as many as one lakh fifty thousand rooms would be required by the time the Commonwealth Games would start. The Government wanted a public-private partnership in tourism and low budget hotels. ''We want to put hotel business back on the rails so as to earn profit.'' She informed the members that the profit of the public sector ITDC hotels had gone up by 130 per cent.

Ms Soni said the Ministry would be able to make available 10,000 rooms in the days to come. It would start a Bed and Breakfast scheme in which a guest could stay with a middle class family at a reasonable cost. It would benefit monetarily such housewives who do not prefer to go ouside but want to earn something.

She said a lot of private players, who had built luxury hotels, were now switching to low budget hotels and were bidding for the purpose.

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