FAITH decides to approach MOT to use its unutilised funds for industry relief as grants

Subhash Goyal, Secretary General, FAITH, has revealed that in the wake of the impact of COVID-19 outbreak on travel and tourism industry, they will be approaching Ministry of Tourism (MOT) and urge them to use their unutilised funds for immediate relief of the industry. “2020 should be declared a tourism draught year because we are sure that in the entire year, tourism is not going to be revived. All the airlines would remain grounded, and we know that all visas have been cancelled. Hence, our revenues have totally dried up. We had a meeting through video conferencing of the FAITH board members, which consists of all the presidents of all the associations, and it has unanimously decided to approach our parent ministry—MOT—to utilise its unutilised funds of the MOT for immediate relief for the tour operators, travel agents and particularly the small and medium operators. We do not have money to pay the salaries and the various statutory obligation. Hence, it is very important that at least Rs. 1,500 crores from the old budget of the tourism ministry and the new budget should be given as immediate relief. The TCS, which has been extended at the moratorium of loans and interest, should be extended for at least one year and TCS should be completely scrapped because it will kill the outbound tourism of the country.”