Bhopal: The Madhya Pradesh government on Saturday unveiled its new excise policy to give a boost to the tourism and hospitality industry in the state by easing conditions on issuing bar licences to resorts and hotels that have come up in the vicinity of national parks and forests.
The state cabinet which met here under the chairmanship of Chief Minister Kamal Nath decided to issue bar licences to resorts and hotels set up near forests if they have a minimum of five rooms. Earlier, resorts and hotels set up near national parks and forests were granted bar licences if they had a minimum of ten rooms.
Briefing reporters after the cabinet meeting, state law minister P.C. Sharma said the decision to ease conditions on opening bars in resorts and hotels coming up near forests would give a fillip to tourism and hospitality industries in the state.
The state cabinet also decided to do away with the policy of mandatory license fee of `5 lakh for opening bars in these resorts and hotels and imposed a variable bar license fee structure with a minimum fee of `1.5 lakh. The structure on bar license fees has been decided in relation to the accommodation strength of these resorts and hotels.
The state government has exuded confidence that the simplification of the excise policy would attract major brands in the hospitality industry at the national as well as international levels to set up their units in MP.
The opposition party in the state, the BJP, however slammed the Kamal Nath government for promoting sale of liquor in the name of giving a boost to tourism industry. “Ironically, the decision to grant bar license liberally was the first one taken by state Congress government after it observed 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi,” BJP spokesman here Rajneesh Agrawal said.
