Trade licenses in e-system: State earns Rs 22.76 cr in 6 months

KOLKATA: The online-based 'real-time trade license issuing mechanism' rolled out by the state Urban Development and Municipal Affairs department has received an overwhelming response with 87,551 trade licenses being issued and the total revenue generation amounting to Rs 22.76 crore in just six months.

The online-based mechanism was introduced in 125 civic bodies across the state on October 1 and the six-month tenure ended on 31st March this 2022.

Trade licenses need to be renewed every year but since the introduction of the e-system, the provisions for renewal for upto 15 years have been made available.

The receipt of applications for the e-building plan (grihanaksha) has also been to the satisfaction of the department with more than 923 building plans being sanctioned by the department. The earnings in this domain from August 16, 2021, till the conclusion of the 2021-22 fiscal have been to the tune of Rs 2.69 crore.

The online building plan system was rolled out for 60 municipalities on August 16, 2021, while for another 63 civic bodies it started on November 16, 2021.

"The time for building plan sanction if all relevant documents are submitted is presently taking 20-25 days. In physical mode, it took almost six months.

The target is to bring it down to 15 days," an official in the Municipal Affairs department said.

In the case of e-mutation which was rolled out effectively in November, the department has cleared 1667 cases.

According to a senior official of the department, the introduction of online services is a major intervention toward Ease of Doing Business (EODB).

"There was no uniformity among the ULBs (except Kolkata Municipal Corporation and Howrah Municipal Corporation) in these matters and each of them had their own way. Often, there were complaints of inordinate delay in building plan sanction or granting of trade license. With the online system in place we can monitor things and can seek an explanation from municipalities for the delay," he added.

The state government rolled out a toll-free helpline number 18003458251, a dedicated help desk at Nagarayan and an email id — [email protected] for answering queries related to these services.