| HOSPITALITY: The Ashok is ready for a major facelift, even as ITDC drafts an expansion plan under its new chief.
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| Delhi’s Ashok Hotel, the ITDC property with fuzzy boundaries — it couldn’t be put up for sale because the land it occupies was out of whack with official land records — is back as the buzz in hospitality circles.
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| While new amenities such as the availability of lawyers’ robes (an interesting option, that) and a multiple-choice pillow menu (pragmatism, dear Watson) are pleasant surprises, coming as they do from a government-run operation, the happening to watch is this: the Ashok is up for a facelift, at long last.
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| A global tender has been floated to get international designers to renovate 182 rooms and suites at the hotel — a tender worth Rs 90 crore, according to an ITDC source.
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| All the existing convention and conference facilities — this, remember, was the idea when it was built — will also be upgraded at a cost of Rs 10.5 crore.
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| The new CMD of ITDC, Parvez Dewan, is keen to turn The Ashok into a place frequented by sophisticates. He intends to have at least 365 performances/events at The Ashok every year.
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| To this end, the hotel is offering the amphitheatre free to music and theatre groups on the condition that they do not charge the audience any entry fee. The hotel is doing up its light and sound equipment for the purpose.
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| The rooms themselves will get a complete makeover, which would mean replacing everything from the piping, furnishings and carpets, to lampshades and decorative objects. Each room will get a brand new LCD television set, while the suites will get plasma screens. The deadline: September 2007.
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| That apart, a whole club floor with 56 rooms is being refurbished (by ITDC itself, though). “The soft furnishings will be redone at a cost of around Rs 5 crore by April-May 2007,” says the source. The hotel can be expected to get upgraded rooms with teak, walnut, and oak flooring and plasma/LCD screens.
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| The self-done work, according to ITDC insiders, would take only half as much as what a private party would charge. This, they explain, is because of the effort ITDC puts in to source quality materials at low cost.
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| For those given to leisure, The Ashok expects to have a new golf green ready for swinging action by January-February 2007. And that’s not all. Under Dewan, ITDC wants to put up four new hotels in Delhi (Ministry of Tourism willing).
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| This would include a 165-room five-star deluxe hotel on a plot adjoining The Ashok, two hotels in the Qutab area, and a new one on a 3-acre plot in Kalkaji, all to be ready for the 2010 Commonwealth Games. A 65-room block is also proposed to be added to the Janpath Hotel, also under renovation.
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| Also proposed is a Rs 12 crore Ashok-Samrat convention centre, large enough to host 3,000 people at a time. “If I have my way, I would have this new convention centre in the air,” says Dewan.
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| According to sources, officials at the ministry have okayed these hotels — on a private-public partnership model. |
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