GHMC losing out on trade licence fee

HYDERABAD: Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) has decided to plug the revenue leak from trade licence fee by comparing the trade licence data with that of Central Power Distribution Company Limited (CPDCL) and commercial taxes department. This decision comes after health wing officials came under cloud for helping traders default on payment of licence fee.
A pilot study was taken up last week in the West Zone circle covering Kukatpally and Serilingampally municipal circles 1 and 2.The study is likely to be completed in a month.
As of now, 1.29 lakh trade licences have been granted in Greater Hyderabad and the corporation gets a mere Rs 23 crore per annum as fee, a civic official said. Incidentally, only about 30,000 of the 1.29 lakh traders are paying fee regularly to renew their licences. Till September second week, Rs 53 lakh was collected as trade licence fee.
"Though commercial connections given by CPDCL and licences granted by the commercial taxes department in Greater Hyderabad indicate that there are four lakh traders, as per GHMC records, there are only 1.29 lakh," a GHMC additional commissioner said.
As per the GHMC Act traders of over 20 categories have to take trade licence, renewable every year, from the corporation to run a business. Not only is the number of registered traders small, the renewal fee is nothing but a trickle. GHMC officials suspect some health wing staff to be colluding with traders and not issuing trade licences. As a result, the number of trade licences issued is very few in the city.
Even in cases where traders applied for licences, they were not being granted.
Since April this year, of the 22,000 applications received by the corporation, 13,000 were given licences, 1,739 rejected and 7,300 have been still pending with the health wing for want of correct information.
"The staff could call or SMS the applicants to furnish details and clear them, but that is not happening and thousands of applications have been kept pending for several months," another senior official said.
As part of the pilot study, hand-held machines are being provided to the staff. "If there is any unlicenced shop or commercial establishment, they can generate new trade licence, collect tax amount (for renewal) on the spot and even inform the traders about their arrears. If the amount is not paid by any trader despite being informed, a notice will be sent to them," he added.
To avoid financial irregularities, the hand-held machines would be loaded with data from the central server located at the head office, another additional commissioner said.