Minister Khader Plans to Bring Forth New Policy on PG and Home-Stay Ventures
Mangaluru: “We have decided to bring forth legislation involving paying guest and home-stay businesses in the state. There are several paying-guest establishments in the region. However, there are no existing rules pertaining to paying-guest and home-stay accommodations. No one knows what are the rules, how to start such a business, who are the owners, what are the charges etc. That is why we want to introduce such a policy in the state. This way the guests staying in PG and home-stay accommodations can come to know what the normal charges are and what facilities must be provided to them. This policy will also mitigate the problem of owners charging varying prices” said Minister for Housing and Urban Development UT Khader in a press meet held at Eden Club, Padua here, on June 5.
Addressing the mediapersons Khader said, “This policy will give certain rights to the owners as well as the customers. Home-stay businesses in this region are less. However, we have attempted to bring up such businesses in this district and drafted a policy in this regard. We are mainly focusing on PG accommodations. After discussing with district officials, legal experts, and several other experts in the field, I included home-stay establishments as well. There are many PG establishments in this city. This policy, for example, will address the concerns of female PGs, the minimum square feet for declaring it a PG, distance between PG building and road, etc. The legislation is presently in the drafting stage. Once the draft has been made final, we will inform the media.”
Khader further said, “We are also making plans to make the payment of Property Tax via an online system. In the present manual system, are they paying the right amount? Are they paying it on time? What is the accurate value of the property? People are not willing to stand in queues and they are sending someone else to stand for them. In order to address all these concerns, the facility of paying property tax online will be brought forth in all the ten city corporations. Pertaining to the controversy over holidays for Good Friday, Eid Milad, etc. people need not worry about such things. The State govt. has not implemented all this. This is only a draft policy and the discussions are still going on. Additionally, the DC and I are closely monitoring the water situation in the city as well. There are also plans in place in the case of monsoon delay.”