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Saturday,
April 12, 2003, Chandigarh, India  
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Punjab fails to cash in on tourism
Fee hike to boost loan market
2 Alto variants launched
Egypt to import wheat from India |
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A-I meeting on aircraft today
007 jitters for Saddam Crude oil prices slide
Airtel slashes tariff
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Punjab fails to cash in on tourism Chandigarh, April 11 The Punjab Tourism Development Corporation celebrates its silver jubilee year this year with a cumulative loss of nearly Rs 6 crore. Its monthly pay bill for its 426 employees is in the region of Rs 35 lakh. It suffered an operational loss of Rs 60 lakh during 2002-2003. The employees have not been paid their salaries for the past two months. The corporation has offered a voluntary retirement scheme (VRS) to the employees. Of the 367 eligible employees, as many as 360 have opted for the VRS. But it is not clear if and when the government will be able to find funds to pay them and send them home. Haryana Tourism Corporation (HTC) seems to be in robust health and last year it made a profit of Rs 45 lakh. “We hope to increase the profit to Rs 70-80 lakh in 2002-2003. The figures are still to be reconciled”, says its Managing Director, Mrs Navraj Sandhu, confidently. The HTC came into being in May, 1974 with an authorized share capital of Rs 20 crore. Since the gestation period for the hotel industry is pretty long, it took seven or eight years to popularise the new tourist resorts in Haryana, the corporation suffered losses during the initial years and it was only in 1980-81 that it turned the corner when it recorded an appreciable increase in its turnover and earned a net profit of Rs 0.79 lakh for the first time since its inception. In the subsequent years, the corporation maintained the upward trend in its operations except during and after the prohibition which was introduced by the then Chief Minister, Mr Bansi Lal, in July 1996. The HTC has since then recovered the lost ground and is no longer in the red. What went wrong in Punjab as regards tourism?
Plenty, says Mr H. S. Nanda, President of the Hotel and Restaurant Association of Punjab. Despite the state’s rich tourism potential, the Punjab Government did not follow a well thought-out, coherent tourism promotion policy. Despite repeated and numerous pleas and representations by hotel and tour operators, the government has failed to come out with a tourism policy. Although it was announced way back in 1996 that tourism will be treated as an industry and all concessions and incentives available to the industry would be extended to it also, nothing has been done to give effect to this announcement, complains Mr Nanda. As a matter of fact, hotel and restaurants continue to be treated as commercial ventures and are billed as such for power and water supply, seriously undermining their financial viability. Actually, tourism has never been a priority with the government of Punjab. This is clear from the fact that during the past 25 years the PTDC has had as many as 27 Managing Directors. On the other hand, Haryana has been fortunate to have dedicated officers like Mr S.K. Mishra and Mr Ashok Pahwa, who not only laid the foundation for a solid tourism infrastructure in the state but also saw to it that it was well maintained. The Haryana Government too gave its full backing to the tourism sector with the result that it had at one stage as many as 48 tourist complexes across the length and breadth of the state. A few of them like Puffin at Chandigarh, Chakor at Sonipat, Kala Teetar at Abubshehar, Naorang at Meham and Horn Bill at Mussourie have since been closed down. But the corporation remains upbeat about its future. Its MD has come out with a new scheme for hiring farm houses around Delhi for letting them out to tourists. It has drawn a very good response. As regards Punjab, tourism was rarely if ever on the radar screen of planners. Tourism promotion is a specialised job which needed the touch of professionals. Instead, it was left to the whims and fancies of the generalists who seldom had the time and inclination to promote tourism. The top posts in the PTDC became the refuge of political and bureaucratic exiles. Top officers flitted in and out of the PTDC at regular intervals. Their stay in the PTDC seldom exceeded two years. To top it all, decade-long spell of terrorism sounded the death knell of the PTDC. As Mr Jagjit Puri, Managing Director, PTDC points out, while the Haryana Government lent a massive support to the HTC, the Punjab Government did not extend any such support to the PTDC. As a matter of fact, even the land on which many of the properties of the PTDC were constructed did not belong to the PTDC. Absence of backing from the financial institutions further complicated the situation. According to Mr Nanda, another factor responsible for the state’s poor performance in the tourism sector has been government’s inability to promote tourism in the areas other than religious places. “People visit places of worship like Golden Temple and Durgiana Mandir in Amritsar and Anandpur Sahib during their holidays, have food at langars run by these institutions and stay in serais attached to them. Under these circumstances, who will come to hotels to stay with us?” asks Mr Nanda, adding that : “And how do you expect me to recover the heavy investment I have made in my establishment?” Over to the government. |
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Fee hike to boost loan market Chandigarh, April 11 The government has announced a hefty increase in tuition fee, hostel and other charges and end of free education for girls in the state. Officials at the State Bank of India here disclosed that there was a tremendous potential in the region for education loans. Though the education loans in the Chandigarh circle, comprising Chandigarh, Punjab, Haryana, HP and J&K, had increased from Rs 12.06 crore in 2001-02 to Rs 57.38 crore during the financial year ended on March 31, this year yet there was a tremendous scope in the market. The bank officials claimed that with the rationalisation of age-old fee structure, students would move towards professional courses, as there would be no more incentive to study in the government or government-aided institutions with ‘outdated’ courses. There was no dearth of financial resources for the education courses, which had good employment potential in the market, like MCA, MBA, MBBS and engineering courses, said an official dealing with the education loans at the SBI. He said the SBI was offering loans up to Rs 4 lakh at 11.10 per cent rate of interest without asking for any security. The bank was offering loans up to Rs 7.5 lakh for studies in India, and up to Rs 15 lakh for studying abroad with collateral security. There were no processing charges and it was offering 0.5 per cent concession in Punjab alone. The bank had sanctioned worth over Rs 30 crore in 650 cases. A senior manager in marketing at Punjab National Bank here said in Punjab and other Northern states, the lack of skilled manpower was the major hurdle in the growth of industrial and service sector. With the increase in fee, the financial institutions and policy makers would promote students to study professional courses. Instead of complaining about the increase in fee for arts and commercial courses the students should take loans and gain "right kind of education" required for the market. The bank was offering education loans up to Rs 4 lakh at 11.75 per cent interest rate and above Rs 4 lakh and up to Rs 15 lakh at 12.75 per cent interest rate, he added. |
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2 Alto variants launched
New Delhi, April 11 Christened Alto Celebration, the 800cc car will be available in two variants at Rs 3.02 lakh (ex-showroom Delhi) and Rs 3.22 lakh for the one with an electronic power steering, a company spokesman said. This is nearly Rs 15,000 more than the existing Alto LX and the LXi (with electronic power steering) cars which are priced at Rs 2.87 lakh and Rs 3.07 lakh. The limited edition model would have special colour- coordinated interiors, central locking, aluminium coated speedometer dials and 2-tone steering with leather cover. The exteriors would have body-coloured bumpers, a chrome- plated garnish on the grille and stylish body graphics, the Maruti spokesman said, adding that the car would be offered in limited numbers for a limited period of time. The launch of the new limited edition versions is part of initiatives taken by it to boost sales of its fast growing premium small car model. Sales of the Alto surged by 43 per cent during 2002-03, which the Maruti spokesman claimed was higher than any other car brand in the country.
PTI
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Egypt to import wheat from India New Delhi, April 11 “Indian wheat is approved by our technical committee. This was one of the agenda items we agreed upon during discussions with Indian authorities and now our grain market is open to Indian produce”, the visiting Egyptian Under Secretary of State, El Said Fouad Kassem, said here. The decision follows a meeting between the Egyptian delegation and Indian Commerce Ministry officials here last evening. After the meeting, it was disclosed that the Egyptian Quarantine Authority had agreed to import wheat from India and handed over a copy of the country’s quality standards and technical specifications which need to be met. Reviewing the present level of bilateral trade, the two sides noted the potential to increase the volume of bilateral trade and to raise it to a figure of $ 1 billion from the present level of $ 560 million. Commerce Minister Arun Jaitley emphasised the need to diversify the trade basket as well as to increase the trade volume by encouraging more active interaction between the business and trading communities of the two countries.
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A-I meeting on aircraft today
Mumbai, April 11 The much-awaited decision will be known when the five-member technical evaluation committee presents its report at the crucial board meeting here to decide on the 250-seater plus MCLR aircraft, part of over $ 2.5 billon fleet acquisition plan. A-I officials were tight-lipped about the possible outcome of the meeting. The board had last year decided to acquire 17 MCLR aircraft with 10 options and appointed a five-member technical evaluation committee, under the chairmanship of Operations Director M.K. Hathi, to look into the financial and technical bids from both the aircraft manufacturers.
PTI
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007 jitters for Saddam
Washington, April 11 A military insider said: “He’s a massive fan of James Bond films and we knew that calling the operation James Bond would really get on his nerves.”
ANI
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Crude oil prices slide New York, April 11 New York’s benchmark light sweet crude contract for May delivery slumped $ 1.39 to $ 27.46 yesterday. In London, reference Brent North Sea crude for May delivery fell 78 cents to 24.47 dollars a barrel. Kurdish forces backed by US troops captured Kirkuk without a fight yesterday, meaning that US-led forces now control Iraq’s northern oil centre as well as its southern fields. US Vice-President Dick Cheney had already helped to depress prices by raising the prospect of a return of substantial amounts of Iraq crude to world markets this year, traders said.
AFP |
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Euro-II petrol Markets closed Ford showroom Axa insurance ‘Blind Date’ SAIL losses CII Chairman EIL bags deal |
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