Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the Legislature-Parliament has directed the government to cancel registration of the casinos, if they do not clear their dues within 35 days.
The government still has to recover Rs 193.5 million from five casinos -- Casino Anna, Casino Royal, Casino Shangrila, Casino Nepal and Casino Fulbari. It has recovered Rs 77.4 million from some of the Casinos recently after a massive crackdown.
When Casino Nepal -- the first casino in Asia -- was started in 1968, it was open only to foreigners but the casinos lately are blamed of entertaining the Nepalis against the law of the land. "The Casinos have not been following the law of the land and entertainng the Nepalis," said Som Bahadur Thapa, secretary at the PAC that has directed to revoke the licence of the Casinos immediately, if they are found entertaining the Nepalis, now onwards.
The committee also blamed the Ministry of Tourism and Civil Aviation -- that issues the licence to the Casinos -- for not regularly and preperly monitoring the Casinos. Not only the Casinos, the Ministry of Tourism and Civil Aviation is also blamed for not monitoring the 475 hotels licenced by itself on either they have followed the law of the land or not.
"The Casinos have been renewed repeatedly without any proper regulation," the committee said, directing the ministry not to issue any new licence without preparing the regulation.As the hotels are issued the licence to operate Casinos, there is still a confusion over who is laible to pay tax if the Casinos won't pay.
Nepal's casino industry is considered the oldest in South Asia but lately it has been in news for all the wrong reasons like tax evasion and entertaining Nepalis.According to the ministry, the country currently has 10 casinos; Casino Royale (Hotel & Yeti), Casino Venus (Hotel The Malla), Casino Rad (Hotel Radisson), Casino Grande (Hotel Pokhara Grande), Fulbari Casino (Hotel Tha Fulbari), Casino Nepal (Hotel Soaltee), Casino Anna (Hotel De'l Annapurna), Casino Everest (Hotel Everest), Casino Tara (Hotel Hyatt) and Casino Shangrila (Hotel Shangrila).
The ministry has informed the committee that there are 10 five-star hotels including Hotel Radisson, Hotel Everest and Fulbari Resort that are under renewal process; two four-star hotels; 24 three-star hotels; 45 two-star hotels; 36 one-start hotels; 358 tourist standard hotels and resorts making it to a total of 475 licenced under the ministry.
The ministry has recently issued licence to operate mini-Casinos at Hotel Vaishali (Thamel), Hotel Ratna (Biratnagar), Hotel Grande (Pokhara), Hotel Sneha (Nepalgunj) for healthy entretainment, increase in tourist number and their stay duration, and generate employment.
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