Cabinet nod to hand over ITDC hotels in Gulmarg, Patna to states

The Centre on Wednesday decided to transfer an incomplete ITDC hotel project -- Gulmarg Ashok in Gulmarg -- to the Jammu and Kashmir government, and the Hotel Patliputra Ashok in Patna to the Bihar government, as part of its disinvestment policy.

Briefing reporters here following a Cabinet meeting, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said that it had earlier been decided that where state governments were not agreeable to jointly lease or sub-lease hotel properties together with the Central government, such properties may be returned to the states at their officially valued price.

"In continuation of Centre's disinvestment policy, the Cabinet has approved transfers of incomplete project of Hotel Gulmarg Ashok, Gulmarg, and Hotel Patliputra Ashok, Patna, to the respective state governments," Jaitley said.

He said that some of the old India Tourism Development Corp (ITDC) hotels had already been privatised.

"As per the disinvestment policy of the Government of India, it had been decided to lease /sub­lease the ITDC hotels / properties / units / joint ventures jointly with the state governments," a Tourism Ministry statement said.

The policy of returning the properties to the states where they were not agreeable to joint leasing with the Centre "had been formulated keeping in view that running and managing hotels on professional lines is not the job of government or its entities", it said.

To date, the ITDC has transferred hotels Lake View Ashok (Bhopal), Brahmaputra Ashok (Guwahati), Bharatpur Ashok (Bharatpur), Janpath (New Delhi), Lalitha Mahal Palace (Mysore), Donyi Polo Ashok (Itanagar) and Jaipur Ashok (Jaipur) to the respective state governments, the statement added.

--IANS

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