Government is on the path of disposing of its famous ITDC Hotels one after another. It is proposing to come out of the Hotel business. Argument of the government is that running hotels is not he business of the government. ‘Business is not the business of government’ was the slogan of the Bajpayee Government which sold ITDC hotels like Mumbai Centaur Hotel, near the Airport, for paltry sum. How the employees in the Centaur Hotel suffered is a well known fact. Women were retrenched, followed by SC/ST and then hire and fire. That will be the same course now also.

The plea of the government is that most of these hotels are in loss. Instead of making them in to profitable units, the government wants to hand them over to private, for maximising their profits. These hotels are situated in centre locations. The proposal is either to lease them for long period (say 30 Years) or sell them cheap.

The hotels proposed for lease/privatisation are Hotel Jaipur Ashok, Jammu Ashok, Kalinga Ashok, Lalitha mahal Palace Hotel, Mysuru, Hotel Bharatpur, Pondicherry Ashok, Ranchi Ashok etc.

The proposal to sell these icon hotels should be opposed and defeated by the democratic forces and political parties. The unions in these establishments should initiate the protest.