West Bengal Fire Brigade and Disaster Management Minister Javed Ahmed Khan has announced that trade licences to commercial houses, which were withdrawn because of lack of fire fighting mechanism, would be renewed.
In view of revenue loss, it was decided to renew trade licences to the commercial houses on condition that they would install fire fighting mechanism within three to four months, Mr. Khan said.
The decision to renew trade licence was taken to augment revenue of Kolkata Municipal Corporation, which had been incurring revenue losses to the tune of at least Rs. 16 crore every year for the past five years, he said.
This decision was taken at a meeting held here on Thursday between the Minister and Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) Mayor Sovan Chatterjee.
After a series of fire incidents in the past five years in the city, renewal of trade licences to as many as 43,000 commercial houses were withheld due to lack of fire fighting mechanism resulting in loss of revenue to the tune of Rs. 80 crore, the Minister said.
According to fire brigade law, although clearance of fire brigade for issuing trade licence is not required for buildings below five-storey, it is mandatory for big commercial houses to have the clearance before renewal of their trade licence, he said.
A monitoring team comprising members of KMC, CESC, and fire brigade has been formed to inspect fire fighting mechanisms of commercial houses, who will have their trade licence renewed. — PTI
