Selja meets Pranab, asks for budgetary sops for tourism

New Delhi, June 26 : Union Minister for Tourism Kumari Selja Friday urged Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee to offer budgetary incentives for the tourism industry as it is facing a crunch due to global economic slowdown.

Leading a delegation of key stake holders from tourism industry, Selja met the finance minister and submitted a memorandum requesting concessions in the union budget to be presented July 6.

"She said that tourism was growing at an encouraging pace in 2007. But due to economic downturn, there has been a fall in foreign tourist arrivals in India and foreign exchange earnings,” said an official from the tourism ministry.

About 5.08 million tourists visited India in 2007, recording a growth of 14.56 percent over the previous year. But January saw a 17.6 percent dip with only 487,262 foreign tourist arrivals.

In April, some improvement was witnessed with 370,756 tourists visiting India - a drop of 3.5 percent over the same month of the previous year.

Selja, who is also the housing and urban poverty alleviation minister, said that export status should be given to foreign exchange earnings made by in-bound tour operators.

She said hotels should be delinked from real estate for the purpose of credit and it should be considered as infrastructure under the Income Tax Act. The last step would encourage investments in hotel sector, she felt.

The minister also requested Mukherjee that there should be relaxation of import duties for adventure tourism equipments.