Govt mulling to sell 8 ITDC hotels to strategic investors

The government is mulling to sell eight loss-making ITDC hotels to strategic investors and will soon work out the modalities of valuation and mode of sale.
Officials from Tourism Ministry and the department of disinvestment in the Finance Ministry are expected to meet soon to decide the way forward, official sources said.
"Timing, valuation, ways of selling and potential investors are the key areas. We would need to figure out first before proceeding with the sale," a source said.
The government had budgeted to raise Rs 28,500 crore through strategic stake sale of PSUs in the current fiscal. This is over and above Rs 41,000 crore to be raised through disinvestment of minority stake in PSUs.

Set up in 1966, the Indian Tourism and Development Corporation (ITDC) currently runs 15 hotels under the name of 'Ashok Group of Hotels' in the country.
Sources said the government wants to hive off eight loss-making hotels, but valuation is a hurdle as these are all unlisted entities.

"We need to appoint a valuer so that we do not sell them cheap. It should never be a distress sale. The sale would happen only if we get the right valuation for such properties," the source added.
The NDA government in 2001-02 had sold eight ITDC hotels to strategic investors, while in 2002-03 it sold 10 such hotels.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had last month indicated that the first strategic sale could be of PSUs under the Tourism Ministry.
"When I say strategic, there are some on which there is no difficulty in even strategic sales. I think the Ministry of Tourism itself may take some initiatives," he had said.