Scrap dumped on Brace Bridge industrial estate where the reservoir was supposed to be built. (Bishwarup Dutta)

Over 2,500 industrial units in and around Calcutta cannot renew their trade licence as the government estates they operate out of do not have fire clearance.

The micro and small-scale enterprises and textiles department, headed by Manabendra Mukherjee, maintains the nearly 20 estates in and around Calcutta (out of the 41 in the state) that house the units.

Over 20,000 people are employed by the units that cannot bid for government contracts or export products because they do not have trade licence. A fire clearance or a no-objection certificate is mandatory for procuring or renewing a trade licence from the civic body.

“If a state government department sets such an example, what signal would go out to private parties? This shows that anybody can get away without abiding by the rules,” said Ranjan Chatterjee, the honorary secretary of the Brace Bridge Industrial Entrepreneurs Welfare Association.

“We cannot participate in the mass tender process of government departments and are suffering huge losses,” said Sukhendu Bikash Ghosh, the president of the Federation of the Association of Cottage and Small Scale Industries after meeting the minister recently to apprise him of the problem.

The minister only told the federation representatives that he had “sent the relevant papers to the chief minister and asked for his intervention”.

“None of the industrial estates under the micro and small scale industries wing has firefighting arrangements. As a result the Calcutta Municipal Corporation is not renewing the trade licence of the industrial units operating from the estates,” said a senior official of the fire department.

“Most of these industrial estates have only one gate that is used for entry and exit. None of them has any reservoir from which fire tenders can draw water. For example, the Brace Bridge Industrial Estate, does not have any water source within a 2km radius,” said a fire official.

Fire services director Gopal Bhattacharjee had visited the industrial estate a few months back and earmarked a spot in the estate for setting up a water reservoir. But the spot has been rented out to a private party to stock scrap.