The Times of India 20.10.2010
NMC fails to register shops, hawkers
NAGPUR: The Nagpur Municipal Corporation which had targeted a revenue of 5 crore through giving licences to shopkeepers and hawkers appears to have drawn a blank. NMC had hoped to generate 2.50 crore by charging licence fees ranging from 200 to 5000 from shops in the city and another 2.50 crore through annual registration charges from hawkers.
However, due to lackadaisical attitude of NMC health department officials and private operator appointed specially for registration of hawkers, the civic body recovered virtually nothing. The NMC had made license mandatory for over 60,000 shops and registration for over 25,000 hawkers. The drive received tepid response from shop owners and hawkers and health department and zonal officials too never pursued it.
Records say not a single shop owner has been registered since November last year while only about 9000 hawkers were registered by private operator. It earned 90 lakh for the civic body. TOI had questioned NMC's ability to register the shoppers without adequate staffers and also the point of giving them licence when NMC was giving them no extra service.
After a year now, NMC administration seems to have woken up and plans to hand over the project to market department that looks after the shops, hawkers etc.
R P Bhivgade, in-charge of market department said they planned to outsource the survey and shops registration drive to a private operator just like hawkers registration drive. The proposal was pending for approval from municipal commissioner Sanjeev Jaiswal. The proposal for making licence mandatory for shops across the city as per Section 348 of City of Nagpur Municipal Corporation Act 1949 was passed by the civic house and standing committee.
NMC received tepid response to its hawkers registration drive too, even after appointing a private agency National Education for the job. The operator has registered only 9,000 hawkers since November 2009 out of estimated more than 25,000 hawkers. Civic body had made annual registration for the hawkers mandatory and fixed 1000 as registration fees and 50 as processing charges.
However, due to lackadaisical attitude of NMC health department officials and private operator appointed specially for registration of hawkers, the civic body recovered virtually nothing. The NMC had made license mandatory for over 60,000 shops and registration for over 25,000 hawkers. The drive received tepid response from shop owners and hawkers and health department and zonal officials too never pursued it.
Records say not a single shop owner has been registered since November last year while only about 9000 hawkers were registered by private operator. It earned 90 lakh for the civic body. TOI had questioned NMC's ability to register the shoppers without adequate staffers and also the point of giving them licence when NMC was giving them no extra service.
After a year now, NMC administration seems to have woken up and plans to hand over the project to market department that looks after the shops, hawkers etc.
R P Bhivgade, in-charge of market department said they planned to outsource the survey and shops registration drive to a private operator just like hawkers registration drive. The proposal was pending for approval from municipal commissioner Sanjeev Jaiswal. The proposal for making licence mandatory for shops across the city as per Section 348 of City of Nagpur Municipal Corporation Act 1949 was passed by the civic house and standing committee.
NMC received tepid response to its hawkers registration drive too, even after appointing a private agency National Education for the job. The operator has registered only 9,000 hawkers since November 2009 out of estimated more than 25,000 hawkers. Civic body had made annual registration for the hawkers mandatory and fixed 1000 as registration fees and 50 as processing charges.
