A day after the UT Administration issued showcause notices to several Bed and Breakfast operators for violating norms, Newsline has discovered that most of the culprits are former guesthouse operators.

In January 2002, the Punjab and Haryana High Court had ordered illegal guesthouses operating in residential areas to shut down. Last year, these very violators got an opportunity to restart their business in the garb of the B&B scheme. The same operators registered themselves under the scheme and began functioning on the same premises using the same modus operandi.

Permits being granted to such people, who had earlier become a menace in the residential areas, has also raised doubts about the selection criterion adopted by the Administration. “A thorough scrutiny is being conducted. It will be impossible for the violators to get away scot-free. If they have used the premises for commercial purposes, they will have to face the music,” said a senior UT official.

Newsline has identified certain B&B operators, who used to run guesthouses on the same premises earlier. All these operators are also named as violators in the report of the inquiry committee
House number 9 & house number 116, Sector 21-A
Illegal guesthouses operated at both the addresses till the High Court ordered their closure. Both the houses belong to members of the same family. Incidentally, the same family runs a hotel in Sector 22 — Hotel Royal Inn. The hotel’s website www.royalinn22.com states the addresses of both the houses under the head ‘Bread and Breakfast’.

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