FHRAI meets FM, seeks infra tag for hospitality industry

New Delhi, Nov 24 (PTI) Representatives from Federation of Hotel & Restaurant Associations of India met Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday and sought granting of infrastructure status to the hospitality industry in the forthcoming Budget.

Currently, hotels built with an investment of Rs 200 crore or more have been accorded infrastructure status under the RBI infrastructure lending norm criteria.  The association has requested that this threshold be brought down to Rs 10 crore to give a fillip to budget segment hotels.

This will enable hotels to avail term loans at lower rates of interest and also benefit from longer repayment periods. It has also requested for hospitality to be classified as an industry that's applicable across the country and create a corpus which compensates states for any notional loss, the association argued.