Orangestreet11’s Weblog

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Our Bureau MUMBAI

TRIDENT, one of South Mumbai’s iconic hotels, will resume operations from Sunday, after it suffered damages in last month’s terror attacks. Taj Tower, a part of the Taj chain of hotels, will also reopen on Sunday evening.

“All rooms and restaurants at the Trident will be in pristine condition to welcome guests,” said Ratan Keswani, president, Trident Hotels. Around 100 rooms out of the total 550 rooms have been booked and will be occupied from Sunday. Of the 100 bookings, around 50-60% are Indian guests. Mr Keswani said traditionally, the Christmas and New Year period is a lean season when the inflow of foreign business travellers takes a dip. “We will understand the actual dip in bookings by the first week of January,” said Mr Keswani at a press conference on Saturday.

Trident is a part of EIH which also operates the Oberoi Hotel. Although, the company did not talk about the opening of the Oberoi Hotel, which was also devastated on 26/11, industry sources said it would take another six-seven months.

The popular restaurants at the Trident such as India Jones, Opium Den, Frangipani and Verandah are learnt to have around 50-60% bookings for Sunday. Both the hotels were insured against business loss due to terrorism with United India Insurance Company and New India Assurance. EIH said it had received Rs 25 crore as advance from New India Assurance.

Since the restoration work at the Trident was minimal, the hotel has managed to open doors for Christmas. According to initial estimates, the restoration work at Trident will cost around Rs 40-50 lakh, while it may be around Rs 40-50 crore for the Oberoi. Mr Keswani added that the company is assessing whether there is any structural problems at the Oberoi.

EIH is constantly in touch with its business partners, the Hotels Association of India and the Tourism Department of the India, to see how the hotel chain can offer value to its guests. The EIH group is also working with a renowned international security agency to add more security measures across all of its properties. Some of the new measures at the Trident include physical frisking of every guest’s bag and submission of a copy of the guest’s identification papers with the local police authorities. Mr Keswani added that for the moment, armed security guards will be positioned at the hotel and some parts of the hotel will be barricaded. Trident would not stop walk-in bookings at its restaurants. However, the hotel would insist on reliable identification proof of the guests, Mr Keswani said.

The Trident has decided not to hold special celebrations for Christmas and New year. However, the restaurants in Trident will have special menus on the festive occasions. The EIH group has also established ‘The Oberoi Care Fund’ in partnership with Give India, an NGO. The fund has been set up after many of the hotel guests and team members expressed a desire to contribute financially to help the families of employees who lost their lives in the tragic events. The Oberoi and the Trident currently contribute to 35% of the inventory and 45% to the topline of EIH.

An editorial on the Indian Union Budget 2008 written by me.

New Delhi: Finance Minister P. Chidambaram announced a Rs. 60,000 crore package for farmers in the Union Budget presented on Feb. 29. Marginal farmers with land holdings upto 1 hectare and small farmers with holdings of 1-2 hectares will have a complete waiver of their loans. Loans overdue upto December 31st, 2007 which have remained unpaid till Feb 29, 2007 will be covered under the package. Chidambaram has ignored the needs of the farmers with three or more hectares of land. Already by distinguishing between the marginal and small farmers the Finance Minister has stirred up a controversy, with farmers feeling the creamy layer (farmers with lesser land) among them is reaping all the benefits.

But waiving loans is not the solution to end the farmers’ crisis for good and it cannot continue for long. Besides this waiver does not apply to large number of farmers who have taken loans from private money lenders. The decision might end up attracting more farmers into the vicious cycle of ‘credit.’ According to government statistics the agricultural credit industry is worth Rs 2, 40, 000 crores in 2007-08. Hence the decision might just increase the profits of the bank at the loss of the farmers. On the other hand the budget does not provide any benefit to farmers who have paid off their loans on time.

A report by the Radhakrishnan panel on Debt in 1991 had stated several reasons opposing the waiver of loans. One of the reasons was around 51% of the country’s farmers do not have access to institutional credit. With the general elections scheduled for next year the Finance Minister has tried to appease the agrarian community. In reaction to the news PSU (Public Sector Undertaking) banks stocks dipped but recovered later. The banks will mostly be reimbursed by the government for their losses in the form of bonds and greater liquidity. However, Mr. Chidambaram did not specify the source of funding for this debt-waiver.

The Finance Minister hopes to finish implementing the relief package by June 30th of this year. But given the numerous paperwork involved, it’s unlikely that the farmers will be able to keep up with the deadlines. The agriculture sector saw a growth of 2.6% this year against last year’s 3.8%. Hence the Finance Minister’s prediction that the sector would row at 4% for the year 2008-2009 looks unlikely given the increasing rate of farmer suicides especially in Vidarbha.

Former Finance Minister and BJP Leader Yashwant Sinha termed the budget as a ‘disaster’ and criticised the relief package. Ironically On Jan. 10 at Wardha, Maharashtra a Kisan Sankalp Rath Yatra was organised by his party colleague Rajnath Singh. At the rally his party workers chanted slogans like “BJP in favour of farmer loans waiver.”

The budget does not talk much about the Public Distribution System except for the use of Smart Cards to distribute food on a trial basis in Haryana and Chandigarh. The Finance Minister also announced the allocation of Rs 31,549 crores for food subsidy under the scheme which will be used next year. The point is whether these funds will reach the needy people and not be pocketed by government officials.

Over the years, many schemes have been introduced by the government. It remains to be seen how much of these new schemes will see the light of the day.

(Vidarbha inputs by Swati Roy/Digantik)