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Mumbai: According to a release, at the request of Kumari Selja, Union Minister for Tourism, in order to encourage the growth of new hotels coming up for the Commonwealth Games (CWG), the Ministry of Finance (MoF) in the recently announced Union General Budget 2010-11 has extended the Five Year Tax Holiday available to two, three and four-star category hotels and convention centres in National Capital Territory Region (NCR) of Delhi and districts of Faridabad, Gurgaon, Gautam Budh Nagar (NOIDA) and Ghaziabad from March 31, 2010 to July 31, 2010 under Section 80-ID of Income Tax Act.
The hospitality industry has commended the efforts made by MoT to encourage the growth of budget accommodation in the National Capital Region of Delhi. Selja in a pre-budget exercise had requested the Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee for extension of time limit of Five Year Tax Holiday for Commonwealth Games hotel projects in Delhi and NCR. Welcoming the decision, Selja said, that the announcement of Government of India (GoI) during the Budget speech has set an economic environment which is conducive for tourism and hospitality growth in the country.
This financial incentive was earlier available during the period April 1, 2007 to March 31, 2010. This incentive has been extended by GoI to encourage the completion of Commonwealth Games hotel projects which had slowed down due to the overall global economic recession. Though these hotels would have come up for the Games the hotels would not have been able to benefit from the Five Year Tax Holiday which required being operational by March 31, 2010.
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