Govt propose disinvestment of Ashok, the ministry opposes

Its one story each anti dis-investment group would like to harp upon - the turnaround of Ashok Hotel, which the government wants to sell, into a profit earning organization, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: May 21, 2007, 19:56:50 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Its one story each anti dis-investment group would like to harp upon - the turnaround of Ashok Hotel, which the government wants to sell, into a profit earning organization.

Not has Ashok Hotel’s profit increased, it is in now in competition with top five star hotels of Delhi like Hotel Park Royal and Hotel Le Meridian. In fact, the profit has increased from just Rs 34 crore in 2003-04 to Rs 4,800 crores in the year 2006-07.

This was precisely what the Tourism Ministry told the government when a proposal to disinvest part of Ashok Hotel, to support renovation, was mooted, earlier this year. "Hotel Ashok has been making consistent profit for the last two years. Thus is a fine example of a profit making public sector unit," the ministry told the government.

Part of Ashok Hotel was to be handed over to a private bidder for renovation and operation, the government had proposed. "By accepting a small sum of Rs 146 crore of a part thereof from a private partner, Indian Tourism Development Corporation would be giving the private partner disproportionate influence over this Rs 11,000 crore hotel," the ministry said.

The ministry also said that disinvesting part of the hotel would amount to running a hotel within a hotel and its privatization. Such a move by government in the past had received opposition from political parties like the Left. They were against dis-investment of the public sector hotels like Ashok when a similar proposal was framed during the NDA government in early 2000s.

The ministry’s opposition is not just limited to finances. It also raised a question about security asking what will happen to security clearance given to entire hotel for the visits of the Prime Minister and the President?

"From the security point of view the hotel is in close proximity of the residence of Prime Minister," the ministry said. Hotel Ashok is also a venue for important Central government functions including international conferences and meeting with visiting dignitaries.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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