Excelsior Correspondent
KATRA, Dec 21: A delegation of Hotel & Restaurant Association, Katra called on Chairman Jammu Kashmir Pollution Control Board Suresh Chug and had detailed discussion with regard to issues pertaining to the Hotel Industry and measures to address the same,
The delegation comprised of its President Rakesh Wazir, Chairman Shyam Lal Kesar, Virender Kesar, Ajay Kotwal and others while PCB Member Secretary B M Sharma, Regional Director Dr Syed Nadeem Hussain, Legal Advisor MM Shah and other officials were also present in the meeting.
Mr Wazir said that relaxation due to Covid pandemic is the need of the hour and sufficient time should be given to the hoteliers to install Sewerage treatment plants and other allied items because there was no business in last nine months. “Hoteliers are not having money to meet even day to day expenses leaving aside the installing the costly sewerage treatment plants and moreover the technical people who install these STPs too are reluctant to come to UT due to Covid restrictions,” he explained.
He further said that sewerage water after treatment be allowed to be disposed off in drains as most of the hoteliers don’t have much land available with them for usage of that water.
Mr Kesar, while speaking on the occasion, said that hotels having consent to operate with them from years be not asked to increase the capacity of their STPs where neither increase in rooms or its capacity is done while doing the renewals of their consent to operate. He further said that Tourism as basic condition requires the consent to operate of J&K SPCB first and on the contrary the JKSPCB asks for Tourism Registrations first for issuing or renewing consent to operate and in this process the hoteliers neither get Consent to Operate from JKSPCB nor Registration from Tourism department, he said and urged that JKSPCB should renew Consent to Operate without waiting for the registrations of Tourism Department.
Virender Kesar said that district offices in PCB should have powers to issue consent to Establish, Operate and renew.
Mr Kotwal suggested that Pollution Control Board should pursue for Common Sewerage Treatment Plant at Katra.
Chairman PCB, Mr Chug listened to the delegation patiently and gave on spot instructions for redressal of most of the issues raised in the meeting. He assured that sympathetic consideration will be given to rest of the points.
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