Wednesday, Jun 18, 2003
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Tamil Nadu-Chennai
By Saptarshi Bhattacharya
The owner, who is the original licensee for the trade, now finds the licence transferred in the name of the present occupier without his knowledge. While officials of the Revenue and Health departments of the Corporation shift the blame on each other even as they try to trace out the file pertaining to the name transfer, the owner, who had petitioned the Corporation to cancel the licence for the trade, now finds the occupier producing a duplicate licence in his name. Interestingly, the paragraphs pertaining to application number, serial number and even the number of the demand draft through which the licence fee was paid, in both the licences are the same — the only differences being the name of the trader and the authorised signatures of `License Inspector' and `for Commissioner'. The owner, M. Ambicka Murali, who was running a `coffee and meals hotel' on L.B.Road, had written to the Corporation for cancellation of licence for the trade following which, the Revenue Officer had replied (letter dated April 10) stating that his licence had been cancelled. Subsequently, the owner wrote to the Assistant Health Officer to close down the hotel stating that a `third party' had forged his signature and got the licence renewed for the current financial year. Zonal officials said when they went to seal the hotel on June 9, the present occupier, S. Jesuraj, had produced a licence which was in his name. They said the hotel had workers inside, who refused to come out, and hence, it could not be sealed. The dispute, they added, was also in court. G. Murali, husband of the owner of the hotel, alleged that Jesuraj was wielding political clout. A few local leaders of the ruling party were supporting him, he charged. Meanwhile, the Revenue department is clueless about the transfer of name and was searching for the file pertaining to the name transfer. The entire licensing system has been under question from various quarters while the enforcement also left a lot to be desired. As per Corporation records, Chennai city has only 32,000 traders. The Deputy Commissioner (Education), D. P. Yadav, who is also in charge of Revenue and Finance departments, said it was the responsibility of the Health department to check for the zonal permissibility, sanitary aspects and the necessary documents before providing licence to eating houses. The file is reviewed and signed by the Health Officer and then by the higher officials before being forwarded to the licensing division. The Revenue department, he said, had a very limited role, which began with collecting the licence fee and ended with issuing a computerised print-out of the licence. Revenue officials pleaded helplessness stating that licensing is centralised and the department was chronically short of staff. Only two Assistant Revenue Officers and six clerks were available to handle the licence renewal files, which made it even more difficult for them to go through each file closely. The zonal-level enforcement done by the Assistant Health Officer and the Sanitary Inspector was only on sanitary grounds and they were not checking the genuineness of the records, officials said.
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