Hotel industry crying after Supreme court orders

Days after ban on serving liquor in hotels and liquor vends on Highways, Hotel industry in Punjab and other states is crying for help and relief. Supreme court in its order on PIL filed by Harman Sidhu of NGO Arrive Safe, has completely banned sale of liquor in any hotel or vend lying less then 500 meters from National Highway.

Hotel and Bars owners are looking for some relief from the court, which is not possible now, as court has already reconsidered its decision after review applications filed by owners and organisations in liquor trade.

Around 2500 bars are effected only in Punjab from this order, now imagine the number of bars and liquor vends and hotels around the country. Secondly after these orders by the highest court of the country, no time or relief was given to the effected business man, to take care of things or manage things accordingly to minimize the losses.

Hotel owners are pleading on the point that they have booked many marriage and other functions in advance and now it will be difficult for them to pay back or organize functions without drinks. One of the bar owner Mr. Vikrant told the media persons that, closing of bars is a great loss of revenue to the government. He said around 2500 bars were paying annual fees of around 5 lacs each on the average bases.

Another point effected owners are putting forward are unemployment issue. They are of the view that on the average each bar in Punjab only were employing around fifty people and this means huge loss of jobs. As per one of the leading newspapers this decision will directly effect around 100000 jobs around the country and will effect 10 lac jobs indirectly in the whole country.

Yesterday the man behind this PIL, Harman Sidhu have given astonishing stats about the number of accident occurring in India. He told the media person that around 10% of accidents around the world occur only in India. He said 1.5 lacs people die in 5 lac road accidents occurring every year in our country. Comparing to number of people dying every year to number of people loosing their jobs, it seems like it is a good decision by the Honorable court.