In the administrative set-up of the national Capital, the Delhi Police has always enjoyed a dominant position given its pivotal role in implementing the ‘permit-license raj’. Unlike the other states, the district police chief in the national Capital has always been a better known public personality than the deputy commissioner of the district.
This has largely been on the account of the power accrued to the force following the implementation of the commisonarate system of policing in the national Capital in 1978, with Chowdhary Charan Singh as the home minister of the country. This reform replaced the earlier system where the Inspector General of Police operated under the Divisional Commissioner.
The Commissioner of Police — always a senior IPS officer,earlier of the Inspector General rank and currently of Director General rank —reports directly to the Union Home Ministry and the L-G. Delhi was among the first few Indian cities to adopt the commisonarate system — a model later commended and replicated across major urban centres.
It did not just free the police from the superintendence of the civil administration but many a responsibilities earlier of the civil administration was delegated to the police as law and order issues. Among these included many powers of licensing and permit which were till then under the purview of the civic bodies.
This in turn, over a period of time, made the licensing postings much sought after giving Delhi Police the adage of a corrupt force.Both the Delhi High Court and the Supreme Court in several litigations involving ‘dual licensing’ too advised against police involvement in business licensing, identifying probable misuse and corruption as major factors.
It was observed in various quarters that the unbridled licensing powers did not just hamper the image of the force but also its effectiveness in handling its essential jobs of maintaining the law and order and crime control. Last week L-G Vinai Kumar Saxena through a notification, annulled the Delhi Police’s regulatory role in licensing businesses like hotels, motels, guesthouses, restaurants, swimming pools, auditoriums, discotheques, video game parlours, and amusement parks.
This order streamlining licensing, aligned Delhi with other states such as Karnataka, Maharashtra, Gujarat, and Goa, which have already eliminated similar duplications. The powers of licensing in aforementioned businesses now solely rests with the municipal bodies. Civic bodies like MCD, NDMC, and the Cantonment Board must significantly now strengthen their capacity to handle these fresh responsibilities.
This significant step could well be said to be a product of the state and the centre working in tandem. The initiative reverberates with the Centre’s “Minimum Government, Maximum Governance” policy. In October 2022, L-G Saxena had constituted a committee to rationalise licensing requirements for restaurants, eateries, and hotels—proposing online, faceless applications and strict timelines. The notification under discussion is outcome of this initiative.
Thankfully with the same party government in the city as at the Centre, the L-G’s this initiative did not face the same stumbling block as some of the similar initiatives in the past. This time around CM Rekha Gupta in fact endorsed the initiative saying that this will make police personnel free to focus on core functions—crime prevention, women’s safety, and public order among others.
According to the policy paper, approximately 25,000 establishments, employing giving direct-indirect employment to 15 to 20 lakh people are expected to benefit from faster approvals, lower costs, and reduced bureaucratic friction. This move is expected to further encourage investment in the hospitality and entertainment sector in the national Capital.
Having talked about all the expected good, we must also not forget that Delhi also has major issues of law and order and this initiative could well deprive Delhi Police of early risk assessment tool, which alerted the force of places requiring monitoring or crowd management plans. Police approval so far necessarily included scrutiny of elements like crowd management or noise control.
Licensing process must have law enforcement inputs. Implementation of these reforms come with the challenge of not putting public safety at stake in the rush of providing ‘administrative efficiency’. The civic administration agencies in Delhi too do not enjoy an image of integrity and efficiency. How successfully are these reforms implemented is something which would be watched closely?
Sidharth Mishra
Author and president, Centre for Reforms, Development & Justice