Local tax irks cyber cafe trade

West Bengal is the only state where tax the cyber cafe owners have to pay an amusement tax by the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) besides normal trade licence fees.

MM Agarwal, proprietor of the local Junction 96 chain of cyber cafes, said such a classification added to the confusion of profiling cyber cafes and their activities, which do not fall strictly under the 'amusement' category.

The current fees were Rs 1000 per screen per year.

The classification of the term cyber cafe was proving to be a source of concern to the owners of public internet access premises throughout the country.

Ashish Saboo, president of the Mumbai based Association of Public Internet Access Provider (APiAp), a self help group (SHG) for entrepreneurs operating shared internet access in public places, in an open letter on the amendments to the information technology (IT) Act 2000, pointed out that the term cyber cafe was a misnomer as by western concepts it included not only public access to internet but also incorporated the art of dining and drinking at the same venue.

In India, the high cost and lack of sufficient orientation of the use of information communication technology (ICT) tools was the raison d'être of so called cafes and resource sharing.

Basic guidelines and norms had to be adhered to by cafe owners after the amendment of the IT act of 2000 in light of the recent fracas in information technology enabled services (ITeS).

Empowerment of users through greater awareness in the public or private domain was needed, felt GD Gautama, principal secretary, IT, government of West Bengal.

As defined in the Act, a cyber café was a place where access to electronic form was provided to the public.

This was open to multiple interpretation like a vendor providing the service of copying video clippings onto the mobiles, admitted Agarwal.

Such lack of clarity in definition necessitated stringent governmental monitoring and control as in Mumbai, Agarwal added.

The licensing norms in Mumbai for cyber cafes involved an annual fee of Rs 2000 for up to 10 terminals, Rs 3000 for 11 to 20 units and an annual licence fees Rs 5000 for more than 20.

Only users with a photo identity were permitted to access internet and details of all customers had to be sent to Mumbai police headquarters.

Arup Ghosh, running a couple of Sify cyber cafes, said Sify had 150 franchisee cafes in the city where such a measure would be a deterrent for customers and wipe out the cost advantage that made the business viable.

Customers protested even if they had to furnish names and so identification would lead to confrontation and confusion, agreed Agarwal and Ghosh.

Both Junction and Sify had membership facilities but no system of veryfying the application form.

Junction was now using an open floor plan system instead of cubicles which Agarwal said was the best form of censorship.

Sify had a cubicle system but documents could not be altered, deleted or downloaded without supervision of the staff.

Smaller cyber cafe owners not backed by a chain had most to lose and lacked a unified voice to defend their turf.

Kolkata had around 300 cyber cafes, some under brand chains and others single.