The Union Budget presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has completely ignored the plight of the tourism sector, the Indian Association of Tour Operators has said.

"IATO expresses deep sense of despair on the FM completely ignoring in her budget speech the plight of the tourism sector and not announcing any sop for the sector when it has borne the maximum brunt of pandemic," the association said today.

While Sitharaman had acknowledged in her Budget Speech that the hospitality and related services are yet to regain their pre-pandemic level of business, the emergency credit-linked guarantee scheme had provided additional credit to more than 130 lakh MSMEs and has helped them mitigate the adverse impact of the pandemic.

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"Considering these aspects, the ECLGS will be extended up to March 2023 and its guarantee cover will be expanded by Rs 50,000 crore to total cover of Rs 5 lakh crore, with the additional amount being earmarked exclusively for the hospitality and related enterprises," the Finance minister said.

However, the tour operator body said that an extension of the loan under ECLGS is of no use for the inbound tour operators as they are not able to pay EMIs of the loan they have already taken.

"Besides banks are not providing fresh loans to the tour operators until they clear their previous loans. Further, the loans are not being given to tour operators who have taken loans under ECLGS 1and 3," the association said.

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The association had requested relief in taxes to tide through the COVID crisis.

"We had requested one time grant based on our 2019-20 turnover, reduction in GST, restoration and enhancement of SEIS benefit, reducing taxes on International airfares and overall reduction of taxes on the Hospitality sector. Most disappointingly none of these found mention in the budget presented," IATO President Rajiv Mehra said.

"There has been huge employment loss besides financial loss in our sector. Just few years ago we were earning huge foreign exchange for the government and in this hour of despair we expected some handholding by the government," Mehra added.

The association is hopeful that the government would consider some substantial relief in the supplementary demands.

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(Edited by : Priyanka Deshpande)

First Published:Feb 1, 2022 8:45 PM IST