Centre to hand over hotels in Jaipur, Mysore, Itanagar to states

The Union Cabinet on Wednesday decided that the Centre would surrender its 50 per cent stake in three ITDC hotels to the respective state governments, which would now have full authority over the redevelopment of these properties.

"The Centre is withdrawing its 50 per cent ownership stake in these ITDC properties and hand them to the states... the hotels are Ashok Jaipur, Lalitha Mahal Palace, Mysore, and the Donyi Polo Ashok at Itanagar (Arunachal Pradesh)," Finance Minister Arun Jaitley told reporters here after the cabinet meeting.

"A consideration will be fixed for the three properties," he said, adding that the India Tourism Development Corporation (ITDC) -managed hotels are owned jointly by the Centre and the concerned states.

Following the Centre's surrendering of ownership, "states will have the authority to decide on how these (hotels) will be redeveloped, al also on who with to form joint ventures for their redevelopment et cetera", Jaitley said.

The central government had earlier decided to hand over three other such hotels to the states in question. These are the Hotel Lake View in Bhopal, Hotel Brahmaputra Ashok in Guwahati and Hotel Ashok in Bharatpur, Rajasthan.

--IANS

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