Nagpur News : As the hospitality business go wide in Nagpur, thanks to the rising commercial and leisure visits to the city, the star hotels have upped their tariff, skyrocketing it to go far beyond the reach of middle class travelers. This is where the plush, well facilitated guest houses come up to spell big business, eventually lending big support to business and leisure travelers alike. However these guest houses do not officially tag themselves as the service providers that have been making big loss to exchequer in the form of taxes collected from these hospitality points.
Sources said there are over two dozen such guest houses thriving on the hi-end visitors. They do not have any official permission and approval of the local fire, police and cvic authorities. Since they do not have to pay any taxes to the government, they do not charge it from their patrons.
However, these guest houses have been running smart to play down any official action on these establishments, as they run privately without any publicity and can easily claim that they belong to their own organization.
Gold Rate
11 April 2025
Sources informed that few such guest houses include Green Park in Khare Town with a accommodation capacity of 8 rooms, Jog Caterers in Laxmi Nagar with 22 rooms, Buty Guest House in Rahate Colony having 4 rooms and a dormitory and Rainbow Guest House in Civil Lines with capacity of 22 rooms. Apart from this, sources added some Christian missionaries too have their guest houses that include YMCA, Mure Memorial and NCCI campus.
Star hotels turn into bad bargain
Sources said the visitors to the city mainly include businessmen, corporate officials who come to city to attend training or seminars, tourists and various prominent figures. With the summer on, they would look for a well equipped air conditioned rooms which have all the modern amenities, good and prompt service etc. Most of the star hotels in the city do offer these services and amenities, however, the delay in services clubbed with heavy tariff often discourage visitors to fix their stay in many of these hotels here as it results in bad bargain for them.
Guest houses for saving money
More often visitor who put his stay there does not even have his or her meals in the hotel. All that he gets to do is to come back in the night to sleep, sources added.
Those visitors who work for state or central government get some or the other guest houses of some state and central government department like Government Guest House, MLA Hostel, Ravi Bhavan, Old MLA Hostels, PWD Guest House, Guest Houses of Irrigation, Forest, WCL, MOIL, and other departments. They prefer to live in these guest houses since the rate is less and no services are provided, yet one has the freedom to roam the entire day and retire to the room in the night.
They prefer not to stay in star hotels since the TADA reimbursements are very less. These officials do not want to spend money from their own pocket for the boarding and lodging. Even if they are entitled to spend extravagant money for their boarding and lodging, they prefer to save the money by making some compromises.
Unauthorised Accommodation
Most of the guest houses running in Nagpur are not officially registered to provide such services. The private players have bought big bungalows and turned them into guest house. This does not have any board that says it is a guest house. Rooms or floors are rented out to the visitors who come for short or long stay in the city. The rates are way lesser that any star hotels. The guests are free to come and go at any time. No specific rules & regulations exist or enforced. No security protocol is followed. Any guest who stays in these guest houses goes back to his place/city and spreads the word that a cheap and best alternative to star hotels available in the city, thus saving advertisement costs.
Affordable Stay
One will be surprised that many private organizations, companies, social and missionary organizations have acquired these reconstructed and restructured buildings. They have made guest houses in these structures. They rent it out to visitors on a very nominal rate. These guest houses are originally shown as guest houses for their own officials from other cities. However in the absence of any guests, other visitors are given the rooms on rent. These guest houses offer are cheap and affordable for the middle class, upper middle class and other guests who do not want to spend a lot of money on extravagant hotels with a lot of limitations, taxes etc.
By Samuel Gunasekharan with Inputs from Rajeev Kushwaha
