ITC to invest Rs 8,000cr in hotel business in Chennai, Bangalore and Ahmedabad

The ITC Limited will invest Rs 8,000 crores to set up hotels in Chennai, Bangalore and Ahmedabad. This was announced by ITC chairman Y.C. Deveshwar in Kolkata on Friday at a post-AGM press conference.

The company will construct three hotels at Bangalore and one each at Chennai and Ahmedabad. Earlier, the company had announced it would set up a hotel in Kolkata. “We have land at all the locations. We will soon start the construction work,” Mr Deveshwar said.

The company is planning to set up the country’s largest hotel at Chennai.

“We will construct an 825-room hotel at Chennai. In addition, our proposed hotel at Ahmedabad will be a seven star deluxe property,” Mr Deveshwar rev-ealed. Besides, the company is planning to set up a hotel project outside New Delhi.

When asked about the company’s retail plans, Mr Deveshwar said, “We have confined our retail initiative in two sectors, lifestyle stores in urban areas and chaupal sagar in rural areas. We will continue to focus in these two sectors only.”

He ruled out the possibility of setting up any hypermarket or supermarket. “The real estate price in the country should be realistic, We don’t think the prices are reasonable now,” he said.

Mr Deveshwar revealed that the company was planning to engage hawkers to sell the ITC’s fresh products only.

In the lifestyle retailing segment, ITC will increase the number of Wills Lifestyle and John Players stores. On the company’s investment plan in West Bengal, Mr Deveshwar said that ITC would invest Rs 1,500 crores in the state for setting up an experimental farm, food-processing unit with logistics infrastructure.