Federal Bank takes over 5-star resort at Thekkady

IDUKKI: The Federal Bank on Wednesday took over the fivestar hotel Elephant Court at Thekkady. On Tuesday, the high court had ordered the management of the Kochibased Vijaya Hospitality group, which owned the hotel, to submit the debt recovery proceedings.
Accordingly , advocate commissioner Prince J Panalal, appointed as debt recovery council, vacated managers and staff from the resort and completed the possession process.He then sealed all rooms of the hotel and handed over the keys to the officials of the bank as per the court directive.
Vijaya Hospitality Resort Limited had taken loans from Federal Bank for constructing the five-star hotel at Thekkady in 2005. Daphane Hotels and Tourism Private Limited, another company promoted by the Vijaya Group, had also taken loan worth Rs 7.5 crore from the bank to construct Pepper Vine hotel in 2011. When the repayment was defaulted, the accounts of Elephant Court and Pepper Vine were declared non-performing assets (NPA) on March 31, 2013. Now, Elephant Court owes over Rs 25 crore to the bank and for the Pepper Vine, the amount is over Rs 11.45 crore.
The court has directed the Pepper Vine to pay over Rs 2.5 crore towards the loan before January 31. If the owners fail to pay, the advocate commissioner will take over it on the next day and hand over the possession to the Federal Bank.
The only five-star hotel in Idukki district, the Elephant Court is considered as a premium resort. It has over 62 rooms and a total area of two acres.
Federal Bank loan recovery wing deputy general manger R Harikrishna Pisharody said, “We followed all legal formalities before taking possession of the resort. As per the court directive, we will continue the status quo till March 31.After that we will try to sell the hotel.“