Of the 77 hotels and guest houses of the tourism department across the state, only 30 are making profit whereas the rest are either lying abandoned or facing huge loses.

In a high-level meeting held on late Wednesday evening, major changes were made in the Request For Qualification (RFQ) and Request For Proposal (RFP) form. For the third time in a month, the date for submitting the tenders has been extended till September 8.

In a desperate bid to do away with its 38 closed and loss-making units and nine tourist complexes in the Buddhist circuit, the department decided to make the offer more lucrative by adding all the 30 profit-making hotels under the Uttar Pradesh State Tourism Department Corporation (UPSTDC).

Even the department’s executing agency UPSTDC, which is responsible for running these units, refused to take over the charge of 17 such units. “These units are not viable for the Corporation,” said an officer from the Corporation.  

Such loss-making units, incidentally, have been built by the department under the pressure of local politicians of the area. “When Mulayam Singh Yadav was the chief minister, he built one at Sumersingh Fort in Etawah — his home district. Similarly, when Ashok Yadav was heading the department as tourism minister in the BJP government, he got a hotel built in his home town Shikohabad,” said a senior official of the department.

The problem with these units is that they have been built at remote areas, which have practically no tourist attraction or tourism related activity, added the official.

From former chief minister Veer Bahadur Singh to Rashtriya Lok Dal leader Kokab Hamid, each one of them got such units built in their respective home towns.

Sources claim that currently a study was on for the construction of another such property in Sultanpur — the work area of incumbent tourism minister Vinod Singh.