Hic, hic, hurray! Gujarat’s 1st bar may come up in Mundra

There is some good news for drinkers. A developer has sought permission to build a hotel with a liquor bar in ‘dry’ Gujarat. Gujarat has some liquor shops and permit rooms but there are no liquor bars in the state other than in Diu and Daman.

The Gujarati promoter, Shahid Balwa’s DB Hospitality group has sought permission from the Board of Approval (BoA) of Special Economic Zones (SEZs) for construction of a hotel in Mundra. The group, which is a co-developer of the SEZ at Mundra in Kutch, has asked for permission to build a four-star hotel with a restaurant and a liquor bar.

It wants to build the hotel in the non-processing zone of the SEZ. Whether it is allowed to build such a hotel or not will be known on April 9 after the BoA’s 39th meeting in New Delhi.

DB Hospitality wants to build a four-star hotel as a franchise of the Hyatt chain. “We want to build a 152-room hotel spread over 6,688 square metres,” said Julian R Groom, CEO of DB Hospitality. “We have also asked for a restaurant with a liquor bar.”

Experts say SEZs are a wholly different kind of territory. “The state of Gujarat has little authority in SEZs,” said Mehul Gandhi, SEZ consultant. “Union territories such as Diu and Daman, and the territory of the SEZs come under the central government.” Gandhi said that if permission for the hotel was granted to DB Hospitality, the Mundra zone will become the first SEZ in the state to have a hotel with a liquor bar.

“If we get the BoA’s approval, we hope to build the hotel by the first quarter of 2012,” Groom said.