Liquor ban: Hospitality industry seeks govt intervention

"We are planning to meet the tourism minster to apprise him of the enormous losses to both states and to the industry," NRAI President Riyaaz Amlani told PTI.

Gurugram: Hit by the Supreme Court's order on extending the liquor ban to hotels and restaurants on highways along with liquor vends, the stakeholders have decided to meet the government officials to seek a way out of the ban.

"We are planning to meet the tourism minster to apprise him of the enormous losses to both states and to the industry. The total consolidated loss will be around 1 lakh crore," National Restaurant Association of India President Riyaaz Amlani told PTI.

The government should at least urgently denotify the highways that are under the municipality limits, he added.

Speaking in the similar vein, Bird Hospitality Executive Director Ankur Bhatia said: "What we are expecting that the government will denotify the highways as some state governments have already done".

The overall impact of the ban is huge as most of the hotels and restaurants are on the highways, and it is impossible to relocate them while it is easier to relocate liquor vends, he added.

The stakeholders had met today to chalk out a strategy going forward.

The impact of the ban can be gauged from the fact that as per Road Transport and Highways Ministry officials, Union Territories such as Daman have requested the ministry to deregister highways as liquor is one of the main source of their revenues.

In a tweet, Niti Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant also said: "Tourism creates jobs. Why kill it".

Oberoi Group President and former chairperson WTTC Kapil Chopra told PTI: "It is very important that government and private sector should come together to resolve the issue as around 1 million jobs will be impacted due to the ban and the revenue loss too would be enormous."

Moreover, unlike the vends the restaurants and hotels work under a very regulated environment, he added.