Task force to tackle hotel room scarcity in Delhi, NCR

NEW DELHI: The government, concerned with the slow pace of rolling out Commonwealth Games 2010 infrastructure in the Capital, has gone into combat mode on the hotel accommodation front. Government sources have revealed that a task force has been formed under the chairmanship of a joint secretary - tourism and additional director general - tourism for monitoring the creation of additional accommodation in Delhi and NCR region.

According to the tourism ministry officials: “We have prepared a status note stating that we are in touch with all land owning agencies for creating additional hotel rooms in the NCR region and the status note has been sent to sports minister Mani Shankar Aiyar.”

The status note estimates that a minimum 30,000 to 35,000 hotel rooms would be required in NCR by 2010, out of which a minimum of 20,000 additional hotel rooms will be required in Delhi itself. Some of the important issues raised by the tourism ministry are the creation of land banks, giving land on long lease, grant of additional FAR, greater commercial utilization and change of land use for hotels.

The task force after meetings with land owning agencies has asked them to identify more hotel sites, adopt a single window clearance approach and to focus on the budget category hotels by giving land on long lease.

Says Rajji Rai vice president Travel Agent Association of India (TAAI):“In Delhi, 70% of the commercial land comes under the DDA, which has now started releasing it. The industry is willing to pay the prevailing market price but we are looking at places where a hotel would be a viable option.”

Agrees Kamal Taneja MD, TDI Group:” The government can attract investment by offering long term leases on their land for new projects and tax holiday incentives. We are happy that the budget proposal give a five-year tax holiday to two, three and four-star hotels in the national capital territory of Delhi, ahead of the

Commonwealth Games as we are looking into the possibility of coming up with such hotels in NCR region. ” For instance, Delhi Development Authority (DDA) has indicated that 26 hotel sites would be provided for the Commonwealth Games and an additional 10 more hotel sites would be identified for budget hotels. Similarly, tourism minister Ambika Soni met Railway minister for identifying railway land for hotel purposes. The railways has identified three sites namely Anand Vihar, New Delhi Railway station and Nizamuddin.

Also, it should ensure that new projects add special value to a city — incentives should be offered only if a new project adds to the city’s infrastructure. The infrastructure still remains a major stumbling block for this sector’s future growth. To get down to basics, 1.3 lakh hotel rooms are needed to cater to the projected six million tourists this year, while the country today has only 92,000 operational rooms. And the tourism industry is obviously worried.

KB Kachru country head, Carlson Group:“The industry, in close association with the government, should take innovative measures to fill in the gap.The supply-demand gap will take a long time to bridge with conventional methods. In the old system, good times meant a rush to drawing boards and a flurry of new construction. But new supply will take time to add —instead, we should soon take some innovative measures like providing special incentives like interest and tax subsidies, for completion of hotel projects in record time to speed up the supply.”