Hospitality industry raises concerns over requisitioning of hotels as COVID-19 facilities

NEW DELHI: Raising concerns over the Delhi government's requisitioning of private hotels for treatment of COVID-19 patients, the hospitality industry has said hotel infrastructure is not equipped to provide critical care and the move would have a significant business impact.

Leading industry body Federation of Hotel and Restaurant Associations of India (FHRAI) wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi soon after the Delhi government authorities on Tuesday ordered use of Indian Hotels Company Ltd's (IHCL) iconic Taj Mahal hotel in the national capital as a COVID-19 facility.

The Delhi government had earlier passed orders requisitioning other hotels for use as COVID-19 care units.

"We are quite surprised and wonder why government owned hotels like Ashoka, Samrat and Centaur are not yet requisitioned, whereas they should have been the first to been taken over, rather than making a beeline for privately owned hotels, given the number of issues involved with doing so," FHRAI Vice President Gurbaxish Singh Kohli said in the letter.

Highlighting that government-owned large facilities such as Vigyan Bhavan would have been a better choice for requisitioning into hospital, the

letter said the state must requisition nursing homes, medical facilities and other hospitals, polyclinics, among others, with beds before requisitioning hotels.

"There is no mention of responsibility by the concerned dept/government of any liability or eventuality subsequent to the requisitioning," the letter, written on Tuesday, said.

The grouping raised concerns about orders by the Delhi government for requisitioning of hotels for attaching them to hospitals and converting them into extended COVID-19 hospitals for patients. Infrastructure of hotels is not equipped to provide the specialised and critical care environment required by COVID-19 positive patients and hotel staff is neither skilled nor trained as healthcare professionals, it noted.

The apex industry body also mentioned that the hotels which have been taken over as an extension of COVID-19 hospital would face a significant economic and business impact.

There is no specific time period mentioned in which the compensation is to be received by the hotels. This will cause a huge delay in settlement of bills and push the industry into further problems, it said. An IHCL spokesperson said that while it would continue to cooperate with governments in their efforts during these times, its Taj Mahal hotel is in the midst of a renovation and is uninhabitable, especially for patients and doctors. "IHCL has been at the forefront of helping fight this pandemic. The company has extended all support to various states across the country including hosting doctors, medical fraternity and providing over 2 million meals till date. A number of our hotels are being used for quarantine facilities," the spokesperson said in a statement.

In the case of Taj Mahal Delhi, the hotel is in the midst of a major renovation, which commenced much before lockdown started, and is uninhabitable, the spokesperson added. "We will continue to cooperate with the government in their efforts during these challenging times," he added.