MCH trade licence fee collection up

hyderabad: after plugging about 20,000 discrepancies in the trade licence fee in twin cities, the municipal corporation of hyderabad (mch) was able to increase its trade licence fee collection from rs 3.84 crore last year to rs 6.70 crore this year. last year, the number of traders, who paid trade licence were about 35,000 while this year it has gone up to 62,000, an increase of 84 per cent in a single year, mch additional commissioner (health and sanitation) d jagannatha rao said.this could be achieved due to the computerisation of all the data regarding the traders in the city. the computers were installed at all the circle offices to facilitate the payment of trade licence by the business community easily, jagannatha rao said. when the licence inspectors launched a drive for the collection of trade licence fee, it was found that many people were not paying according to the plinth area of the establishment. for instance if the business was set up on a 1,000 square foot area, the trader was found paying only for 200 square foot area, jagannatha rao said. in sultan bazar alone we found many traders evading the licence fee in this manner, he added. there are 350 different trades for which licence fee has been fixed accordingly. by the next year the corporation hopes to collect trade licence fee from 80,000 traders in the city thus increasing the revenue to rs 10 crore, jagannatha rao said. in order to achieve the target, enforcement teams have started identifying the traders, who have been evading the licence fee. all the data pertaining to the trade licence was being fed into the e-seva centres also, rao said adding this would make the people easy for payment of the licence fee. additional commissioner (secunderabad) r v chandravadan said many people evaded the licence fee by closing their shops when the licence inspectors visited their shops. however, notices will be issued to those traders who did not pay the licence fee yet, he added.