JAMSHEDPUR: Ravaged by the Covid-induced back-to-back lockdowns two years in a row, the hospitality sector in Jamshedpur and Adityapur is in doldrums and is looking towards the state government for a solution.
On Saturday, Singhbhum Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCI), which represents hotels and restaurants, besides the entrepreneurs and traders, wrote to chief minister Hemant Soren to lift the curbs imposed on eateries.
At present, dining at eateries is prohibited and only takeaways are allowed and commercial establishments are allowed to operate till 4pm from Monday to Saturday.
Urging the CM to extend business hours till 8pm, SCCI functionary Vijay Anand Moonka said, “Seeing how the situation is getting worse for businessmen, we have asked the government to allow banquet halls to host social events.
Restaurants should be allowed to entertain customers at 50% capacity and hotels should be allowed to host wedding ceremonies with 100 guests.” The Jamshedpur Hoteliers Association (JHA) questioned the logic behind allowing malls to reopen when hotels are shut.
“Treat us at par with other industries,” hotelier and ex-president of JHA Anil Khemka said.
He gave the examples of Delhi and Mumbai where hotels were given the green signal to reopen with SOPs intact even though the two cities reported a high number of Covid cases.
There are around 100 hotels and 500 plus restaurants in the city, according to industry insiders.
Khemka claimed that industry assessment has pegged a loss of over Rs 300 crore in the past 15 months by conservative estimates but the actual loss will be much more.
He urged the government to consider waiving property tax and give discounts on the fixed charge on electricity bills to help revive the industry.
“Two back-to-back shutdowns forced hundreds of workers associated with the industry to either venture into other sectors to look for jobs or sit at home without any work,” Wave International’s proprietor Raja Singh said.
The Confederation of All India Traders’ national secretary, Suresh Sonthalia, said the state government should sympathise with the hotel industry as it reopening eateries will augur well for sectors like business travel, food and beverages and others linked to the industry.
“The hotel and restaurant industry doesn’t function in isolation.
Until all the components of the travel and tourism sector open up, business is unlikely to improve,” Mithlesh Jha, who is the director of Kannellite Hotel which is a unit of Jharkhand Tourism Development Corporation, said.
Jha added that the hospitality sector will flourish when banquet halls are reopened up for social events and when in-demand trains like Steel express, Ispat express and Shatabdi express resume service between Howrah and Tatanagar and corporate travel picks up pace in Steel City.
Madhuban hotel’s manager Anurag Chaurasia said SMEs in Adityapur have not resumed production on a large-scale due to which the number of businessmen travelling to the city is low.
“Presently, the room occupancy in several hotels in Jamshedpur and Adityapur is not more than 5% of their total capacity,” he said.
He added, “Takeaways account for only 20% of the business.
In such a situation, how can the hotels survive.”