Naveen Vaishnav sent this to us and we thought it should be shared verbatim

“One cannot see now but the rising unemployment in the Tourism sector will be seen only post COVID19, the WORST is still to come.

My name is Naveen Vaishnav, I am a Hotelier and a few days from now I will be completing 19 odd years in this industry, I am fortunate to have worked with some great companies and leaders.

Amid COVID19 the hotel revenue has gone zero which resulted in layoffs of employees be it from Big brands to Standalone hotels. The standalone is furthermore affected as many of the first time Hotel owners took hefty loans from the bank or unsecured loans straight from the market on high interest. The lockdown situation has thus resulted in many workers left underpaid or losing jobs with no salary.

Without naming any organisation, the ongoing difficult time has forced many hotel owners to downsize staff or salary/perks. I work for a standalone hotel and will survive for the next 2 months without a salary with my savings, beyond that it will be difficult for me as well. I am not writing this that I need assistance, but to highlight the pain of many working in hotels as a casual worker, contractual or on a fixed-term contract, with an average salary between 10-12k per month.

The layoffs of Junior staff across pan India has created a panic among many and further, they do not have any support system or covered under any scheme which will take care of the basic need of food & shelter, they even do not fall in the category of poor where an NGO or Govt support coming & knocking the door to deliver a month supply of groceries.

In India, we have a total of 81 lakh taxpayers earning between 5.5 lakh to 9.5 lakh per annum and as many as 1⁄4 of the above people belong to the service industry. Even after being a regular taxpayer, no one is covered under any form of social security and are left to fight their odds on their own.

My only reason to write this is to bring the attention of all the decision & policy maker including the Ministry of Tourism to work on a policy which helps the front line staff in a situation like this. Creating a committee who will listen & understand the difficulties faced by these people and work on a solution.