Trade license to commercial houses to be renewed in WB

West Bengal Fire Brigade and Disaster Management Minister Javed Ahmed Khan has announced that trade licenses to commercial houses, which were withdrawn due to lack of fire fighting mechanism, will be renewed.
In view of revenue loss, it was decided to renew trade licenses to the commercial houses on condition that they will install fire fighting mechanism within three to four months, Khan said.
The decision to renew trade license 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 yesterday 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 licenses to as many as 43,000 commercial houses were witheld due to lack of fire fighting machanism 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 license is not required for buildings below five-storey, it is mandatory for big commercial houses to have the clearance before renewal of their trade license, 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 licenses renewed, the minister said.
Renewal of trade licenses were stopped for the past five years following series of fire incidents and a subsequent finding of a team of fire brigade, KMC and CESC that 42 major commercial buildings did not have proper fire fighting mechanisms, Khan said.
The probe team of KMC, CESC and fire brigade will also inspect small commercial buildings to ensure that they have proper fire fighting devices, Khan said.