Authorities warn strict action if hotels fail to fill online

Strict action would be taken against hotels and lodges at Gopalpur-on-sea, the beach resort town in Odisha's Ganjam district, if they fail to fill online the required form introduced by Home Ministry, a senior police officer said today.
Home ministry introduced the online registration form in April 2014 to track day-to-day movement of foreigners.
"We will issue notice soon to all hotels and lodges in the town to follow the procedures when a foreigner checks in", said Superintendent of Police (Berhampur), Sarthak Sarangi.
Police swung into action when they came to know that a hotel did not fill up the form even though two foreigners had been put up there.

It came to light when the hotelier lodged a complaint against the foreigners on Thursday, alleging that they did not pay lodge charges for one day. The matter was solved after police intervened, said the SP.
"We conducted checks and came to know that some hoteliers are not filling up the form," said Sarangi, who is also looking after the foreigners' registration office (FRO), rules it is mandatory for the hotels to fill up the form.

Hotels have to register with bureau of immigration, home ministry, the SP said adding "After that, they have to visit the FRO with the hotel documents and get a confirmation from us. Then they have access to fill up the form online".

Strict action would be taken against those who fail to fill the prescribed form.
Joint Secretary, Hotel and Restaurant Association of Odisha, V Santosh Kumar said the hoteliers are ready to cooperate with police. But police should create awareness on the system among hoteliers, he added.