Today News- 5-Star Hotel projects to restart in Noida, Yamuna Expressway

As the stamp duty dispute involving several luxury hotel projects in Noida, Greater Noida and Yamuna Expressway comes close to a settlement, the three locales are expected a flurry of activity in corporate and hospitality sectors shortly.

A number of five-star hotels were approved by the previous Uttar Pradesh government but the projects could not take off in time due to lack of clarity on stamp duty clause. "Those approved five-star hotels were caught in a technical issue related to the stamp duty but, the issue is expected to be sorted out very soon," Rama Raman, chairman cum CEO of Noida, Greater Noida and Yamuna Expressway Authority said.

Elaborating on the dispute, Raman said, "Actually, these hotels were provided land at the commercial price of Rs 70,000 per sqmt. However, they wanted the stamp duty of Rs 7,000 to be included in the commercial prices that we were charging. In this tug of war, their lease date expired. However, as I said earlier, all the projects will be back on track soon."

Local industrial groups have welcomed the development. "It's a welcome move. The proposed five star hotels will not only be a booster dose for the day to day business and corporate activities in the region," said Aditya Ghildiyal, vice president of the Association of Greater Noida Industries Association (AGNI).

Ghildiyal expressed hope that the luxury hotels will be evenly spread in Noida, Greater Noida and Yamuna Expressway and help the hospitality industry in the region and work as a fuel for other sectors. "Greater Noida has been hosting F-1 race and attracting around 65,000 viewers worldwide. Lack of proper hotels with world class facilities here has resulted loss of business to Delhi," he added.

Vipin Malhan, president, Noida Entrepreneurs Association (NEA) said, "Though Formula-1 is not a regular phenomena, its successful holding has resulted into Auto Expo now being shifted to Greater Noida (It used to take place in Pragati Maidan in New Delhi).

In future, we can expect more such international events taking place in Noida, Greater Noida and Yamuna Expressway."

Malhan said such global events will see a large number of corporate visitors and HNI sport enthusiasts visiting the region.

Avadhesh D Pandey, chairman of the IIA, added another aspect, "IT, especially the software industry and the institutions operating in the region would be the major users of these five-star hotels and if you see the total strength of Noida, Greater Noida and Yamuna Expressway, around 15 percent of the community would be using these five star hotels."

Pandey said that he is expecting more from the government to encourage industrial environment and proper infrastructure as he sees a direct link between the growth in hospitality and rise in economy. "It has been close to 40 years since Noida Industrial Area was incepted. But big corporate houses are just 5 to 6 in number."

A Noida authority official said that the administration is going to establish a business convention centre that will attract business conclave of global repute and make corporate tourist inflow a regular phenomenon. "As people coming to attend such conclaves would prefer to have their stay in the vicinity of the convention centre, these five-star hotels would get regular business. Convention Centre would be established by the time these five-star hotels would become operational."