The Corporation Council on Monday passed a resolution permitting the issue of trade licence in the added areas. The council also took a major step towards streamlining of the system for issuing trade licences in the city.
The number of licensed trades in the old city limits was 194. The new proposal is expected to cover 575 trades. The trades such as electrical goods, tyre shop, furniture, plastic works, automobile parts, fruit stall, pickles, DTP centre, tea stall and bakery were among those included in the original list of the old corporation limits.
The erstwhile local bodies in the newly added areas had a list of 295 trades under the trade licence net. These included flower shops, book binding, animal skin processing and hair processing.
The Corporation has proposed new licence fee for newly added trades such as pizza, pollution control equipment, computer stationery and tanjavur plates by collecting a list of 86 trades from the Commercial Tax Department.
The new system will help the civic body tackle the challenges in trade licensing and regulate trades that lead to health hazards. In 2003, the civic body had introduced a system to issue trade licences to businesses, under which the revenue department was entrusted with the task of enlisting new trades.
Last year, the Corporation had identified 39,290 traders who were operating without trade licence. The civic body will send legal notices to such traders after the new system is approved by government.