HYDERABAD: The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) is drawing plans to bring all the retail wine shops located in Greater Hyderabad limits under trade license net.
Since the auctioning system for allocation of retail liquor shop licenses was introduced by the then YS Rajasekhara Reddy government in 2005 and subsequent changes in the liquor policy later, the retail liquor shop owners have been evading trade license fee to the municipal corporation in the guise that corporation was claiming the amount in issuing no objection certificate (NOC) for opening the retail liquor shops in the twin cities.
There are as many as 2,400 retail wine shops in Greater Hyderabad limits. By bringing the retail liquor shops into trade license net, the civic body is expected to generate good revenues. Apart from wine shops, majority of them have permit rooms that allow people to consume alcohol in the rooms.
GHMC officials said that apart from running liquor business, the permit rooms are generating garbage such as empty bottles, water sachets, mixture packet covers and other waste in large quantities.
GHMC commissioner B Janardhan Reddy held a meeting with senior officials and zonal commissioners of all five zones on Tuesday on bringing the retail liquor shops under GHMC limits into trade license net.
In this connection, all the deputy municipal commissioners and assistant medical officer of health (AMOH) of GHMC Circles have been instructed to furnish the details about number of shops, number of wine shops paying trade license fee, if any, amount paid by them and any legal issues involved.
As per the municipal corporation laws, license from Municipal Commissioner is required for usage of any place within municipal limits for the purposes specified in Schedule-IV.
It is the duty of the commissioner to inspect places in respect of which a license or permission is granted to ensure the compliance of the conditions of license or permission, (Section-344 (7), GHMC officials added.
After collecting all the data from the circles, GHMC would make the wine shop owners pay the trade license fees and the collected fees would be utilised for developmental works, they added.