Over 100 Dehradun homestays lose registration for violating rules

The Dehradun district administration on Sunday cancelled the registrations of 103 homestays after inspections found violations of safety norms and operational guidelines, officials said.

The action followed inspections carried out under ‘Operation Safai’, during which five magistrate teams checked 153 homestays across the district for violations of the Uttarakhand Homestay Rules, officials said.

According to officials, registrations of 17 homestays were cancelled in the first phase of the drive, 79 in the second phase and seven in the third phase. The administration has also started the process of removing these properties from the official state tourism website.

Officials said several of the inspected properties were being run commercially as hotels by wealthy urban owners instead of operating as authentic homestays.

Many operators had leased out the properties and were managing them without the mandatory physical presence of the owner, officials said.

The crackdown came amid a rise in criminal activities, drunk driving, over-speeding and incidents of public firearm discharge in the city.

During the investigation, police linked several of these incidents to people staying at commercialised homestays that were allegedly operating “illegal round-the-clock bars”, playing loud music and becoming centres for “unlawful activities”, officials said.

Officials said many units did not have basic kitchen arrangements and lacked mandatory food licences required for commercial operations.

Several homestays were also found operating without fire-extinguishing equipment, while some had expired fire safety certificates.

According to officials, some establishments were operating rooms beyond their authorised capacity and using the properties as commercial wedding venues, which went against the original objective of the homestay policy aimed at promoting local culture and cuisine.

Inspectors also flagged earlier cases where homestays had failed to submit mandatory Form-C details for foreign guests. During the surprise inspections, magistrate teams also found several registered properties to be non-operational.

The district administration formed area-wise committees for inspections in areas including Sahaspur and Raipur. Officials said the committees identified 103 non-compliant properties and recommended immediate cancellation of their licences.