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Citing poor occupancy, eighteen loss-making hotels of the Himachal Pradesh Tourism Development Corporation were ordered to be shut down by the Himachal Pradesh High Court on Tuesday.
Justice Ajay Mohan Goel, presiding over a single-judge bench, ordered that HPTDC properties be shut down by November 25 and held the Managing Director (MD) of the Corporation personally responsible for ensuring compliance with the directive. The court termed these properties as "white elephants". Justice Goel in his order said that continued functioning of these properties is a burden on the state exchequer. "The continuation of functioning of these properties...is nothing but a burden on the exchequer of the State and the court can take judicial notice of the fact that there is a financial crunch which is daily being propagated by the state in the matters being listed before the court involving finances," the court said. "In order to ensure that public resources are not wasted by the Tourism Development Corporation in the upkeep of these white elephants, it is hereby ordered that the following properties of the Tourism Development Corporation shall be closed forthwith w.e.f. 25.11.2024, as running of these properties is apparently not financially viable as of now....," it added. Reacting to the High Court order Himachal Pradesh Revenue Minister Jagat Singh Negi said that if these hotels are not doing financially well, steps can be worked out to address the issue. "The HPTDC hotels were built at a time when the govt wanted to encourage tourism. Only after reading the court order, I can say what message we want to give by closing down these hotels. These are properties located at prime locations. If any of these properties are not doing well financially, then we should work on it," Negi told ANI. The Minister also expressed concern over potential loss of jobs to people working in these hotels. (ANI)
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