Rajasthan Tourism Development Corporation (RTDC) is contemplating to lease out 15 hotels. The tourism department is now looking at restructuring RTDC which will effectively pave the way for leasing out 70 units including hotels, motels and cafeterias. The plan is also to use some of the proceeds from the leasing out for repaying the debt the department is looking to raise for the INR 500 crore tourism development fund announced in the budget.
The proposals were discussed in the review meeting by the chief minister on Monday in the presence of chief secretary, principal secretary (finance) Akhil Arora and other senior officials from the tourism department and the government.
While it is not clear whether the Rs 500 crore budget allocation for the tourism development fund hinges on the success of the leasing out RTDC hotels, one thing is sure that the finance department is against pumping money into a corporation whose financial condition has gone from bad to worse with half-hearted revival attempts in the past.
“We will explore all the options including taking funds from the government and raising debt for the Rs 500-crore tourism development fund. The government will support us for development fund, if required we will raise debt. We are keeping all the options open. We will work out with the government whether RTDC lease out money will be used to repay the debt,” said Gayatri Rathore, principal secretary, department of tourism.
According to multiple sources who attended the review meeting, the chief secretary said that RTDC’s losses of over Rs 170 crore is not unmanageable given the size of its underlying assets. As part of the restructuring plan, the chief minister had allocated Rs 10 crore in 2021-22 budget for the renovation of seven RTDC operated midway motels. In the previous year budget, the hotels of the corporation were allowed to open retail liquor shops to shore up their profits.
Rathore said the restructuring will take time and they are working on it. That will take a little bit of time but we are on it. “We have to look at the ownership and title of the properties and the legality for restructuring. It will take time.”
According to the sources, the department is planning to lease out the hotels for 20 years which will not result in ownership change.
In the meantime, the employees union of RTDC has given calls for staging protests against the leasing out. “The government never took revival seriously and it was a piecemeal approach. There some hotels which are making profits and others can also make profit. It’s the government which has failed to run the corporation properly. We will launch agitation across the state if the government goes ahead with its leasing out exercise and reverse deputation of employees,” said Tej Singh Rathore, president of RTDC employees association.
