Employees of Iconic Hotel in Srinagar Decry Injustice After Govt Takeover

Srinagar: Over 160 employees and their family members protested here on Monday against the government’s taking over of a prominent hotel, Centaur in Srinagar, a move, they said, rendered them jobless after years of service.

The employees have been holding protests continuously in Srinagar city against their sacking, which they said was “unjustified and arbitrary”. The employees said some of them had spent as many as 30 years working in the hotel premises.

“They are being fired without any justification. We just want some respite. This is pure injustice with my father,” an employee’s son who was part of one of the protests said.

Another employee told NewsClick that the move came as a “shock” for him especially as no prior notice was given. The employee had recently returned to Kashmir valley leaving a lucrative job in a Gulf country.

“Now I feel stuck and I am not sure what to say to my family,” the employee, who worked in the engineering department, told NewsClick.

Built in the 1970s on the banks of Dal Lake, the iconic hotel was designed by a famous architect Joseph Stein. The 252 room-hotel was, however, was sealed last week and its employees asked to leave after a government order blamed Hotel Corporation of India (HCI) for violating terms of the lease agreement by subletting the hotel to a third party.

The then state government vide Government order No.118 of 1981 dated October 17, 1981 leased out the property measuring 13 acres to HCI for a period of 99 years and accordingly a lease agreement was executed on March 10, 1982. The employees were served an eviction notice on April 25.

“We were simply asked to leave. We have no issues regarding whosoever wants to run it whether it is the state or the Centre but our jobs should be secured. If we are on the road today, our families will also come on the roads tomorrow,” another employee Farooq Ahmad said.

Ahmed said the UT administration sacked the employees despite an earlier commitment from the senior administrative officials, including the chief secretary and members of the Employee Joint Action Committee (EJAC) that the takeover will be carried along with the hotel employees.

The trade union body EJAC, however, in a statement expressed “disappointment” over the government’s move of sealing the hotel and firing of the employees.

“The decisions have been taken at a time when the unemployment graph in the UT is rising, the price index is going up, and the cost of living is rising beyond proportions. We express serious concerns and worries as the partial decisions of the government are going to affect the families badly and may lead to their starvation and uncertain future,” EJAC President Fayaz Ahmad said.