Oberois to spend Rs.6 billion for three new hotels in India

The Oberoi Group, one of India's leading hotel chains, said Wednesday it would invest about Rs.6 billion within the next four years to build three luxury hotels in India.

'We have several projects in the pipeline that would come up both in India and overseas. In India we would be building three hotels in Mumbai, Goa and Rajgarh (Madhya Pradesh) on our own for which we would be investing about Rs.500-600 crores (Rs.5-6 billion)', P.R.S. Oberoi, chairman, Oberoi Group told a press conference here.

'All these hotels should be up and running by mid 2008 to 2011, which together would make available about 1,200-1,500 rooms,' he added.

The group is also developing luxury hotels near airports that are scheduled come up at Bangalore and Hyderabad.

As part of its overseas plans, the group is building two hotels in Abu Dhabi, one each in Dubai, Cambodia and Maldives, which would be mostly built through management contracts.

The group currently runs 32 hotels and luxury cruisers in five countries under the brand names of 'Oberoi Hotels and Resorts' and 'Trident Hilton' for the mid-market segment.

The Group is also engaged in flight catering, airport restaurants, travel and tour services, car rentals, project management and corporate air charters.

The group's premier luxury hotel in Udaipur, Rajasthan - Oberoi Udaivilas - was declared the best hotel in the world by the Travel+Leisure readers' survey, one of the world's leading travel magazines with a circulation of about one million.

BSNL goes on strike but services remain normal

Employees of state-run telecom major Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. (BSNL) went on strike Wednesday asking the government to place equipment orders for the expansion of its mobile services.

'A section of employees have gone on strike just for one day. But this has not disrupted any of our services. All our exchanges are running normally without any disruption,' BSNL chairman and managing director A.K. Sinha told IANS.

'We are negotiating with them and I am sure we will sort this out by today,' he added.

According to industry sources, the employees went on strike for not being able conclude discussions with the new telecom minister A. Raja and the department of telecommunications (DoT) about the placing of contracts with regard to laying 45.5 million GSM lines to selected vendors.

The employees were not satisfied with the reply they got from the DoT, the sources said.

The union is expected to meet the minister and senior officials from BSNL and DoT Wednesday.