Boost for bed & breakfast joints

Giving a boost to low-cost tourism before the C'wealth Games begin, the Govt has decided to categorise B&B units as non-commercial entities across the country, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: Jan 14, 2008, 01:38:50 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Giving a boost to low-cost tourism before the Commonwealth Games begin, the government has decided to categorise bed-and-breakfast (B&B) units as non-commercial entities across the country. This special categorisation is now available only to B&B units in Delhi.

The sub-committee on infrastructure on Friday approved a proposal of the Tourism Ministry to treat B&B units across country as non-commercial units. This, government officials say, would entitle owners of B&B units to several tax exemptions and provide employment avenues to lakhs.

The Tourism Ministry had last year initiated a pilot project in Delhi, inviting citizens to provide their homes for B&B facilities. It has launched similar campaigns in Pune and Hyderabad.

"Shortly, other towns and cities will be asked to promote the concept, which is new to India but very successful in the developed world," a government official said.

The government believes the new scheme will offer greater choice to tourists and solve the problem of shortage of rooms. In Delhi alone, a shortage of 20,000 rooms is estimated and there is not enough space to develop new hotels.

Under the scheme, B&B certification would be of two types — gold and silver. A committee will inspect homes and issue certificates, based on facilities being provided. The scheme stipulates specific requirements on standards, facilities and services to be offered to guests for gold or silver classification.

The committee is also considering a ministry proposal for a tax holiday on budget hotels in Buddhist towns and religious places like Nanded in Maharashtra.

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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