Oppn Congress smells rat in HP govt investment move
In its drive to attract investments, State govt has offered 14 prime tourism properties, including landmark hotel ‘Chail Place’ and heritage tea estates to private bigwigs;
Shimla: In its drive to attract investments, Himachal Pradesh government has offered 14 prime tourism properties, including landmark hotel 'Chail Place' and heritage tea estates of Kangra to private bigwigs.
The move, which comes close to heels of upcoming Global Investment meet, proposed for November 2019 at Dharmshala, has created a huge controversy. The opposition Congress terming move as 'sell-out' of Himachal Pradesh interests to outsiders threatened to take an agitational course.
Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur, finding himself in the tight spot on Sunday, summoned top government officials and ordered a review of the proposals. As a result, the item relating to tourism sector investments was quickly removed from the Government 's official web-portal – 'Rising Himachal'.
However, by then, most Congress leaders including Mukesh Agnihotri, who is the Leader of Opposition in the state Assembly, got the controversial item on tourism downloaded from the website.
"I had already raised my apprehensions about the Jai Ram Thakur government putting Himachal on sale in the garb of Rs 85,000 crore global investment plan. The cat is out of the bag now. The Tourism department has also fixed the price tag of Rs 33.3 crore to Rs 250 crore on the hotels run by Himachal Pradesh Tourism Development Corporation (HPTDC). There is some underhand deal. We are going take to the streets against such a move," Agnihotri told a press conference at Una, his home district. Speaking to Millennium Post, Agnihotri said the state government has even offered to bend HP Ceiling on Land Holding to permit tourism activities on the Tea gardens land, which can't be diverted for any other commercial use. There is also a move to dilute provisions of Section 118 of HP Tenancy and Land Reforms Act 1972, which restricts land sales to non-Himachalis.
When contacted Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur sought to play down the move. "There is no final decision on privatisation of HPTDC hotels. All such reports are not based on facts." As par brochure of Tourism besides listing out 14 properties, the majority of these loss-making also offered to promote tea tourism in Kangra. Under HP Ceiling on Landholdings Act 1972, there is no provision to change the land use of tea estates. If the private sector gets the tea estates this would amount of violations, and also favour to chosen private players.
During the Congress regime attempt was made to allow few influential tea estate owners to convert their tea gardens to hotels but stiff opposition from the BJP forced then Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh to abandon the move.
Agnihotri claims that there was a politician-bureaucrat-corporate nexus to loot Himachal Pradesh, takeover lands, tea estates and HPTDC properties. This will not be allowed to happen.