Himachal Hotel and Restaurant Association suggestions for tourism and infrastructure of the state

1. It has been observed that the government gives permission firstly to dig the road & drains for the purpose of laying cables by various agencies but then it’s not repaired secondly, even during the ongoing work of Smart City the drains are not restored. Thereby the water seepage is there which has resulted in this disaster.

2. Shimla is a very safe tourist destination because it’s a non-flood-prone area. The government on priority should restore the drainage system of the town.

3. We further suggest a special wing should be established in the PWD department and MC to monitor the drainage system and conditioning retaining walls, trees, etc, and ensure that all the drains are in proper order, there is no danger of falling off retaining wall and trees well before monsoon and winter season.

4. There are only slides due to no proper drainage. The landslide only occurred at the bottom slopes of Shimla.

5. The Tourism of Shimla has come to a grinding halt since 6th July 2023. The livelihood of for all the stakeholders whether they are hotels, restaurants, shopkeepers, taxi walks, horse walks, photographers, pram walks, tourist guides, etc is dependent on Tourism.

6. The government needs to ensure the construction of NH 5 is completed in time bound manner well before the coming season.

7. The tourism stakeholders are facing financial hardships . The state Government has declared the present calamity as a State Disaster. The government on priority should take up the matter with the lead banks to direct the banks to defer the re-payments of loans and provide emergency credit lines by way of soft loans for the survival of the already ailing industry. The Stakeholders fear their loan accounts may not slip to NPA.

8. Its unfortunate that the hoteliers will be compelled to lay off employees because there is hardly any revenue collection.

9. It needs of time to revive tourism in Shimla .it’s not only for the survival of tourism stakeholders but also for the government because of no revenue generation by way of various taxes

10. we hope in days to come to every thing will be normal and tourism will again come on the track.

11. We hope the train connectivity to Shimla will be restored by September and the tourists will again start coming by train.

12. The Government needs to take the following steps which will help in bringing tourism back on the rails.
a) Revival of train connectivity by the earliest.
b) Complete the work of at least a single lane of the NH highway near Chakki ka mod for the free and fearless drive to Shimla, Chail, Kasauli, Kufri, Narkanda, etc.
c) The maximum tourist comes from Gujarat in groups starting from mid-September to mid-Feb. The Government needs to highly subsidize the road tax charged to tourist coaches from other states.
d) Air connectivity needs to increase more flights from Delhi and heli taxi needs to be introduced from important cities of Punjab Haryana and Uttrakhand to boost weekend tourism This will bring a good inflow of tourists to Himachal. Presently Tourists are going to Jammu & Kashmir to divert tourism traffic to Himachal incentives to travel agents and Tour operators of Gujarat need to be given at the Government level.

We urge both the government’s Center as well as to the state Government to take effective steps to save Tourism of Shimla which contributes around 7.8 % of the total GDP and is the highest employment provider.