Mumbai :
Hotel and restaurant associations on Thursday welcomed the Maharashtra government’s move to waive excise licence fee on a pro-rata basis and the rollback of 15 per cent annual hike. Hotel and Restaurant Association of Western India (HRAWI), Federation of Hotel and Restaurant Associations of India (FHRAI) and Indian Hotel and Restaurant Association (AHAR) in a statement said this decision will help the beleaguered industry, which was shut for 7 months due to the lockdown.
The Maharashtra government has decided to waive excise licence fee on a pro-rata basis for restaurants and bars and rolled back its decision to hike 15 per cent licence renewal fee annually. The Maharashtra government had announced a 15 per cent hike in the renewal of excise licence for 2020-21 from April this fiscal.
For those who have already paid the excise licence fees for this year, the waiver will be adjusted during the renewal of the licence in the next financial year. ”This is a major relief for the restaurants in the state and we thank the government for giving us the waiver on the excise licence fee. The eight odd months of lockdown has wrecked almost every other player in the hospitality industry,” HRAWI president Sherry Bhatia said.
The night curfew announced by the Maharashtra government has dampened the spirits of hotels and restaurants in the state but the waiver of the excise fee is expected to bring a reason to cheer for the hospitality industry, the associations noted. ”This is a very positive step towards supporting the industry which has been badly hit due to the pandemic related lockdown. We expect such kind of steps in the coming days too, which will help the industry to bounce back to some normalcy.
”Our industry is the second-largest employment provider with 60 lakh direct employment in and around Mumbai and two crores indirect employment and this will help the government too on the revenue front,” AHAR president Shivanand Shetty said..
