HP government to invite private sector to manage its hotels

Chennai: Not strictly in favour of disinvesting its stakes in the state government undertakings, the Himachal Pradesh government has plans to invite the private sector to manage its hotels / restaurants.

According to G S Bali, minister for transport, tourism and civil aviation, the state government is open for handing over management of couple of hotels to private players.

The Himachal Pradesh Toursim Development Corporation has around 57 hotels with 950 rooms and 2,050 beds. It also runs 62 restaurants.

Meanwhile the state government has written to the centre requesting more time to consider unbundling the state electricity board (SEB). As per the Electricity Act, SEBs cannot continue to perform the three activities — generation, transmission and distribution.

"We are having second thoughts on unbundling as our electricity board is making profits," remarked chief minister Virbhadra Singh. According to him, the state is an exporter of power.

A high level delegation under Singh's leadership is touring the southern states inviting industrial investments into Himachal Pradesh. The delegation wooed the members of Confederation of Indian Industry, Tamil Nadu to Himachal Pradesh. Later addressing the press Singh said, hydel projects for 4,000 MW are underway. "Tenders for 2,000 MW will be finalised in three months time."

He said that the state has attracted investments worth Rs10,700 crore in non power sector during the last two years. "The investments in the power sector is around Rs30,000 crore." Himachal Pradesh has hydel power potential of 21,000 MW.

Corporates like ITC, Novar and TVS Motors are planning to set up a plant each in Himachal Pradesh.

Queried about the impact of imported apples on the apple farmers of the state Singh said, "The imports have not affected the demand for Himachal apples. Our apples fetch better prices than others."