‘Auto renewal of e-trade licenses crosses 4L-mark’

Kolkata: In a little over three years since the introduction of online based “real-time” trade license issuing mechanism by the Urban Development and Municipal Affairs (UDMA) department, the total number of auto renewal of e-trade licenses has crossed the 4 lakh mark.

The total of e-trade licenses issued since its inception has been over 4.06 lakh. The online mechanism was introduced in 125 civic bodies across the state from October 1, 2020. Trade licenses need to be renewed every year but since the introduction of the e-system the provisions for renewal up to 15 years have been made possible.

The total number of online building plans (e-grihankasha) sanctioned is 39611. The online building plan system was rolled out for 60 municipalities from August 2021 and in the next phase it was introduced in another 63 civic bodies. “The time for building plan sanction, if all relevant documents are submitted, is presently taking 20-25 days of time. 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 case of e-mutation that was rolled out effectively from November 2021, the department has cleared over 1.30 lakh. According to a senior official of the department, the introduction of the online services is a major intervention towards 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 are able to monitor things and can seek explanations from municipalities for 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.