Mysuru: Karnataka State Hotel and Restaurant Owners Association, Bengaluru and Mysore Hotel Owners’ Association conferred Athithya Ratna award on nine achievers and Udyama Ratna award on three achievers at a function held yesterday in Asha Prakash Shetty Bunts Bhavan, Vijayanagar 3rd Stage in city.

Nine hoteliers including city’s Dasaprakash Hotel owner K. Ramavittal Das and Gokulam’s Mukund Iyengar Bakery owner Murali Rangaswamy as well as K.K. Bhaskar of Kodagu, N. Sriramarao of Chikkaballapur, Kalmane Trivikrama Acharya of Ballari, Madhava Govind Nayaka of Bagalkot, Haridas Shetty of Hubballi, B. Seetharama Shetty and B.S. Manjunath of Bengaluru were felicitated and conferred with annual Athithya Ratna Award.

L.R. Kamath and Shylendra Sharma of Bengaluru and Rammohan Naik of Belagavi were felicitated and conferred with Udyama Ratna award.

Speaking on the occasion, President of KPHRA B. Chandrashekhar Hebbar lauded the efforts of those involved in hotel industry for providing food for the hungry. Teerthahalli Bheemasethu Mutt Seer Raghuvarendra Teertha Swamiji graced the occasion. Earlier, awardees were brought in a procession from Vijayanagar’s Yoganarasimhaswamy Temple to the venue. Chande and Yakshagana troupes and other folk groups also participated in the procession and enthralled the onlookers.

MLAs S.A. Ramdas, L. Nagendra, Mayor Pushpalatha Jagannath, actor Gurunandan, Association Hon. President K. Prakash Shetty, Hon. Secretary Madhukar M. Shetty, Association President C. Narayanagowda, Hon. Secretary A.R. Ravindra Bhat, Association State Vice-President Ravishastri and others were present. Later, Raghuleela Sangeet Mandir artists presented a dance drama ‘Sri Srinivasa Kalyana Vaibhava’.