Annual Budget 2021 disappoints industry with no mention and relief following pandemic year

With no relief nor any mention about the hospitality industry in the Annual Budget 2021, the industry stalwarts have expressed disappointment about the same.

The Union Budget 2021 has disappointed the Hospitality industry. Hospitality and Tourism roughly account for 10 per cent of India’s GDP and employ nearly 9 per cent of India’s working population and yet, it failed to find space in the Union Budget. The Hospitality industry has been bleeding, and the FHRAI has brought it to Govt.’s notice through several representations time and again. Our pre-Budget memorandum to the Hon’ble Finance Minister included some priority reforms to stabilise the industry such as Review of the Kamath Committee recommendations, Classifying Hospitality under the RBI Infrastructure lending norm criteria, Industry status to hotels, restaurants and resorts across the country, To include Hospitality and Tourism in the concurrent list, MAT waiver for a period of three years, IGST billing to hotels for corporate and MICE bookings. The hospitality industry is disheartened and feels demotivated in its darkest hour. With zero foreign exchange earnings and less than 25 per cent of pre-pandemic revenues, the sector is facing an existential crisis. The industry is the fall guy for the Govt. We stand by and come through for the Govt. in its every need, as we did during this pandemic, but we are surprised that the sector could not find even a mention in the FM’s budget. We wish our Govt. would study what other countries have done to ensure tourism, the worst-hit sector, is kept alive. The Hospitality and Tourism industry was looking forward to some relief measures to lift this most severely affected industry by COVID19. Instead, it has yet again completely and fully chosen to ignore us,” said Gurbaxish Singh Kohli, VP, Federation of Hotel and Restaurant Association of India (FHRAI).