‘Miniscule’, say travel agents about Finmin’s relief package

Nagpur: The Travel Agents’ Association of India (TAAI) said the central government’s measures to help their beleagured sector was ‘miniscule’ in terms of its impact. Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday announced a slew of decisions to help the travel sector recover from a prolonged slump. A statement by the association said that they expected more direct relief to their members rather than ‘limiting it to 904 stakeholders registered with the Ministry of Tourism (MoT)’.
TAAI’s president Jyoti Mayal, in the written statement, said that they all expected much more than what was announced. “The outreach of this relief is miniscule” said Mayal. “Only those registered with the Ministry of Tourism (MoT) will benefit. Most of our members are registered with the state tourism department,” said Mayal.
She claimed that registration of many of TAAI members was still pending due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The association’s vice-president Jay Bhatia said, “Only 10% of the actual stakeholders will benefit as per the FM’s package. To widen the scope, the FM must include those registered under MSME. We request that all those registered under GST and have been contributing to the exchequer over the years should be the recipients of this package.”
Shreeram Patel, treasurer of TAAI, said, “We had appealed to the government to grant tax holiday to our employees and members for the next five years. Furthermore, we requested a moratorium on EMIs/interest payable for the next two years by the same beneficiaries.”
Bettaiah Lokesh, honorary secretary general of TAAI, said the importance of the sector cannot be ignored. “This being the largest service sector in India generates over 9% to the national GDP,” said Lokesh.
TAAI’s Nagpur chapter chairman Rajesh Agrawal said, “It’s very important that the government steps in to provide relief to our sector. The Covid-19 induced lockdown has badly affected our businesses.”