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U. Bharath (cbedit@imaws.org)
The laxity of the Mamallapuram Municipality in streamlining its solid waste disposal mechanism has resulted in restaurant owners operating in the world-famous tourist town being highly affected. Furthermore, they are forced to pay through their noses to dispose of the kitchen waste by engaging the services of private agencies, the Chengalpattu District Hoteliers Association has alleged.
“Over 100 restaurants in the town — which attracts thousands of domestic and foreign tourists every day — are forced to shell out up to Rs 15,000 per month, to safely dispose of the kitchen waste, due to the apathy of the civic body,” said K. Pandian, President of the Chengalpattu District Hoteliers Association, in a freewheeling chat with Kitchen Herald.
He pointed fingers at the Mamallapuram civic body for turning a blind eye to this issue faced by the local restaurateurs, even after the civic body was upgraded to a municipality in August 2024. “If this attitude of the municipality continues, it would certainly affect the tourist arrivals and the restaurant owners,” added Pandian.
Civic Menace and an Eyesore to Tourists
How come a municipality which collects waste tax ranging from Rs 500 to Rs 5,000 from restaurant owners could wash its hands off one of its prime duties, Pandian questioned. “Due to this apathy, small eateries dump the waste on the roadside, as they lack the financial heft to pay for the private bodies. They, in turn, get slapped with spot fines. The whole issue has become a vicious cycle, with no remedy in sight,” bemoaned Pandian.
For the UNESCO-accredited tourist town with the renowned Pallava-era shore temple and Pancha Pandava Rathas, the poor state of the garbage disposal mechanism doesn’t make for a good advertisement, observe restaurateurs. Mamallapuram attracts up to 50,000 tourists during weekends and the numbers go further up during summer vacation. But the stench reeking off the mound of disposed kitchen wastes by the roadsides is an eyesore for tourists, complain the affected restaurant owners, who are apprehensive of losing patronage due to a poor garbage disposal mechanism.
Lack of Road and Parking Infrastructure
Yet another civic problem in Mamallapuram is the abysmal road infrastructure and the lack of a multi-level parking facility, with the town’s infrastructure waiting to be revamped for decades. According to restaurateurs, hundreds of tourist vehicles get parked by the kerb, as there are no designated parking lots in the town. This kind of haphazard parking adds chaos to the roads as well as reduces footfalls to the restaurants.
“More often than not tourists are forced to park their vehicles by the pavements, since many restaurants do not have parking spaces of their own,” said a worried restaurateur, adding that Mamallapuram badly needs a major revamping of infrastructure, which include widening of arterial roads and multi-level parking facility set up within the town.
“But the Tamil Nadu government is yet to take the call to revamp the road infrastructure and develop parking facilities in the town, as it did in the case of Ooty. The state government should come forward to spruce up Mamallapuram town with major infrastructure projects, in order to make it shine on the global tourism map,” Pandian said, adding that roads like East and West Raja Veedhis and the Pancha Ratha Road are what they were a good 50 years ago.
‘Bring restaurants under the MSME sector’
While appealing to the government to include the restaurant industry in the MSME sector, restaurateurs, spread across towns including Chengalpattu, Mamallapuram, Thiruporur, Guduvanchery and Kalpakkam, which come under Chengalpattu district, said that the government has not come forward to address several problems faced by the restaurant owners by bringing the industry under the MSME sector, and extending benefits like bank loans and reduced power tariff.
“For example, It is very hard for us to get bank loans for our business needs. We are forced to take loans from private entities paying double the interest rate. Likewise, the reduction of power tariff to Rs 8.50 per unit as in the case of MSMEs is a long-held demand, which has not been addressed so far. So, we are demanding that the government heed to our long-held demands and categorise us as one of the trades in the MSME sector,” Pandian informed.
Reeling under Immense Tax Burden
The GST regime and the local taxes levied by civic bodies have only increased the tax burden of restaurateurs, who have been vociferously appealing to the government to revamp the tax structure.
“While restaurants with A/c are paying 12 per cent GST, non-AC restaurants pay 5 per cent GST. And then, there is 18 per cent GST levied for rental properties, which is affecting us a lot,” Pandian said and added, “If only the state and union governments extend support to the food sector, which is a key pillar of the Indian economy and a prime contributor to employment generation and our GDP growth, the restaurant business will flourish in a big way.”
