JD(U) opposes govt move to privatize "sick" ITDC hotels

Janata Dal(U) today opposed the Narendra Modi government's proposal to privatize some of the "sick" hotels of Indian Tourism Development Corporation (ITDC) and demanded the formation of a committee to look into the matter.
The party also demanded the inclusion of the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) before privatizing the institution and alleged that the current proposal is in "nexus" with crony capitalists.
"We are reminding Modi government of the repeatition of history of privatizing and hotels while the same issue was not solved yet. The current proposal of tourism is in nexus of crony capitalism. Before proposing this, the government must clear its stand on the issue.

"JD(U) strongly opposes this proposal and demands formation of a committee to check the ground situation and include CVC before privatizing the institutions," Party spokesperson K C Tyagi said in a statement.
Tourism Minister Mahesh Sharma had recently proposed privatization of eight out of the 16 "sick" hotels.
"We propose that all our sick units need to be offloaded. Out of 16 hotels, eight are in very bad shape and we propose to disinvest it in the very first phase. It is not wise to bear the burden of these loss-making units," Sharma had told PTI earlier.
The eight hotels which are likely to go under the hammer include those at Jaipur, Bhubaneswar, Puri, Jammu, Guwahati, Ranchi, Pondicherry and the Lalitha Mahal hotel in Mysore, all of which are loss-making.