Eating out to get costlier

Eating out to get costlier
By Lalitha S ,DH News Service,Bangalore:
Many propreitors have already effected an increase and others will follow suit shortly, says Secretary of Bangalore Hotels Association (BHA) P C Rao

Eating out is set to get costlier. Hotels and restaurants will be passing on the increase in the prices of food products to consumers.

While the prices of milk and related products have already gone up, a whole lot of edibles are going to become dearer, thanks to an overall increase in the prices of essential commodities in the last few months.

The Secretary of Bangalore Hotels Association (BHA) P C Rao said: “In the last three months, the price of a commercial cylinder has shot up from Rs 700 to Rs 1,000. The cost of a kilo of cooking gas has gone up from Rs 34 to Rs 50, while the prices of groundnut and refined oil have shot up 30 per cent. Add to this the increase in the price of a litre of milk and curd by Rs 2 and Rs 4 respectively. Hotels are left with no choice but to increase the prices of some items by 10-15 per cent.”

Rao says many propreitors have already effected an increase and others will follow suit shortly.

Prasad, the manager of BHA, is more certain. “The hike will be implemented mostly on January 1, as was decided during our general body meeting on December 22. The 1,000 hoteliers who participated decided to raise the prices of beverages like coffee, tea, badam milk, Horlicks and milk shakes, and snacks like curd rice and curd vada.

However, Madhukar Shetty, treasurer of the Karnataka Pradesh Hotels and Restaurants Association, said the 3,000 hotels that come under the association’s banner in the city have not effected the hike yet.

“We cannot pass the burden of increased prices onto the customer immediately; it’s the festive season. We may implement the hike by the end of January or the first week of February.”

Aziz, Operations Manager at The Shelton Grand, said: “We have an annual contract with our vendors and day-to-day fluctuations in the prices of vegetables or any other product do not affect us.”

P K Shetty, Executive Director at Hotel Chandrika said: “We are not going to increase prices immediately. We will wait for a month to see if the prices come down before we implement a hike.” Dr Bhagwan Das Alva, proprietor at Navya Shanti Saagar — a branch of the Darshini group — said: “We have not increased our rates. Right now, we are resorting to measures like manpower reduction and cutting down on electricity consumption. We will consider a hike only if these measures fail.”