The apex body of hotels and restaurants in the country - Federation of Hotel & Restaurant Associations of India (FHRAI), recently, held an interactive webinar with Sanjeev Sanyal, Principal Economic Advisor, Ministry of Finance. The association informed Sanyal about the reservations and non-cooperation of banks in extending the one-time restructuring of loans announced by the government and requested for his intervention in getting the issue resolved.

Sanyal suggested focussing on matters that need most urgent attention and narrowed them down to restructuring of existing debts which would require financial restructuring by the banks, bringing back people from their homes to their jobs and specific policies related to hospitality sector. For faster and effective turnarounds, he advised the association to identify solutions within the existing systems instead of recommending a new scheme for the sector.

“The government has announced several measures for businesses across sectors to benefit from it. However, if something isn’t working, the government will intervene and identify the reasons for it not working. I would ask the industry to flag specific cases and details of the banks, so that we can take measures to address and resolve the issues. I also ask that the association brings to our attention any specific instances where banks are not following the directions of the RBI or the Finance Ministry and we will take appropriate action. The government is aware of issues and hardships faced by the tourism and hospitality sector and assures the industry that it is taking all possible steps to mitigate the damage to the sector,” says Sanyal.

Gurbaxish Singh Kohli, VP, FHRAI, and president, Hotel and Restaurant Association of Western India (HRAWI); Pradeep Shetty, jt secretary of FHRAI, and VP, HRAWI; D V S Somaraju, treasurer – FHRAI; S P Jain, MD, Pride Hotels; Surinder Jaiswal, president, HRANI; Vivek Nair, CMD, Leela Hotels; and Nirav Gandhi, MD, Express Hotels; were part of the FHRAI interactive meeting delegation.

“We thank Sanyal for taking the time to hear us out and for his valuable suggestions. We have put forth to him the most critical aspects and issues compounding to the sectors woes. We presented to him the revenue projections which indicate a loss of 1.6 lakh crore and job losses mounting 5.5 crore if the sector is not revived. With no revenues, but rentals, salaries, statutory bills still to be paid, the industry may succumb by the year end. Indian hotel and restaurant (hospitality) industry contributes about 10 per cent GDP to the country’s economy and needs urgent attention from the government,” states Kohli.

Sanyal opines that since there is an existing framework, it can work for hospitality too. He added that there are common issues in every sector, and since 100 per cent guarantee is given to MSMEs, it will be applicable for hospitality as well.

“During the interaction, we have informed Sanyal about our dialogues with the Commerce Ministry for rationalising and cutting down the number of licences under ease of doing business policy. We also apprised him on the unscrupulous licencing laws including copyrights issues. However, the conversation was mostly focussed on the much-needed one-time restructuring of loans with banks and about the issues we are facing in getting it executed. We have recommended that it would do much good to the industry if a single-window for redressal with the RBI were to be instated for specific issues,” states Shetty.