KATHMANDU, JUNE 1

Hotel Association Nepal (HAN) has expressed its dissatisfaction with the government’s budget.

Issuing a statement today, HAN has said that the budget has not included programmes to sustain the country’s hotel industry.

“Although the government has announced that a fund worth Rs 50 billion will be established for tourism workers, there are more than one million workers engaged in the industry and the hotels are not in a situation to pay their staff by taking loans,” reads the statement.

The statement has further mentioned that hotels are likely to be financially unstable for the next two years.

Amid this, the hotels will not be able to make arrangements to pay rent, workers’ wages and other necessary things.

“Although the government’s announcement to provide subsidised loans and reduce loan interest is appreciable, effective implementation of such announcement has been a problem since long,” reads the statement.

The government has provided discount on income taxes for tourism and hotel industry, but the provision might not be effective as the industry is unlikely to make any earning for at least a few years, as mentioned in the statement.

Meanwhile, HAN has committed to work with the government on implementing the provision of travel leave to promote domestic tourism.

“HAN is not assured of effective implementation of the programmes and plans announced by the government in the budget for the next fiscal year. The budget did not address the real issues created by COVID-19,” states the statement.

HAN has also requested the government to encompass staffers currently not registered in the Social Security Fund in its earlier decision related with the fund.

“Many of our workers were yet to be registered in the fund due to various reasons.

Hence, HAN requests the government to also take them into consideration when contributing to the fund on behalf of affected industries,” adds the statement.

Earlier, the government had announced it would deposit the amount contributed by workers and employers of organisations affiliated to the Social Security Fund for the month of Chaitra (mid-March to mid-April).

A version of this article appears in e-paper on June 2, 2020, of The Himalayan Times.