India’s private tour operators and foreign airlines today rejected a government appeal for dramatic price cuts to rescue the country’s peak tourism season from mass cancellations due to an outbreak of plague. “A discount is not going to attract anybody,” said Mr. Gautam Khanna, president of Mercury Travels, a travel agency, following a crisis meeting with government officials. The Government had urged airlines, travel agents and hotels to offer 50 per cent discounts beginning next week, when authorities expect the outbreak of plague, which has killed 55 people, to taper off. But at a two-hour brainstorming session today, executives from about 150 tourism groups rejected the strategy of slashing prices to lure plague-wary tourists. Instead, they backed the creation of a crisis management committee and agreed to fund a public relations campaign claiming conditions in India were safe for travel.

‘Engg exports will be hit’

The Chairman of the Engineering Exports Promotion Council (EEPC), Mr. J. S. Bhasin, feels that the Finance Ministry was biased against exports. Finance Ministry’s refusal to pay the claims worth Rs. 425 crores filed by the exporters under the International Price Reimbursement Scheme (IPRS) was an indication of this, according to Mr. Bhasin. He cautioned that engineering export targets might not be met if the Government did not step in immediately. He said the Commerce Ministry had taken up the IPRS issue repeatedly with the Finance Ministry, but without any results. Releasing latest figures, Mr. Bhasin said during the first five months of the current year (April-August) the engineering exports had grown by only five per cent against annual target of 14 per cent.

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