JS to pass Hotel & Restaurant Act soon

The Bangladesh Hotel and Restaurant Act 2014 is set to be passed in the Jatiyo Sangsad (JS) soon with some new provisions. These include empowering the DCs as the registrar for hotels and restaurants, and stipulating timeframe for starting business after getting the registration, said a high official.
The draft of the act also proposes raising the registration, license and renewal fees of hotels and restaurants for increasing the government revenue from these.
According to the proposed law, resorts, motels and rest-houses will also come under the same definition of hotel.
The Parliamentary Standing Committee on the Ministry of Civil Aviation and Tourism (MoCAT) is now scrutinising the draft.
As per the draft, the deputy commissioners (DCs) will act as registrar and controller of all restaurants and hotels of one and two-star categories, and will issue their registration.
On the other hand, hotels of three, four and five-star categories will get license from MoCAT.    
The ministry has already sent the draft law to the Parliament Secretariat, following vetting of the Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs. Earlier, the cabinet approved the draft act on November 11, 2013.
"We have completed all the formalities, and sent the draft law to the Parliament Secretariat. We hope it will be passed shortly in the parliament," a high official of MoCAT, involved in the process of preparing the draft law, told the FE.
He said the core objective of the draft law is to flourish the country's tourism sector by regulating the hotels and restaurants with the proposed act.
The proposed law suggests that the entrepreneurs must start restaurant business within one year after getting the registration, while in case of hotel it will be two years.
The new entrepreneurs willing to start hotel and restaurant business must fulfill the conditions, prescribed in the proposed law.
The country has about 2,400 hotels. Of these, eight are five-star hotels, while three are four-star hotels, and sixteen are three-star hotels. The number of restaurants in the country is now around 2,500.
At present, the hotels and restaurants are being operated under the Bangladesh Hotel and Restaurant Ordinance 1982 and the Bangladesh Hotel and Restaurant Rules 1986.