Traders in different market areas of Bhubaneswar. Picture by Sanjib Mukherjee

Bhubaneswar, April 19: The Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) plans to bring more traders and commercial establishments into the trade licence net.

The new set of application forms printed for the purpose gives a trader the option to seek a fresh trading licence or go for renewal of the existing licence. The BMC has fixed April 30 as the deadline for the exercise.

The licence section of the BMC has shown encouraging results this year by increasing its collection up to Rs 3crore. While during 2009-10 the collection was Rs 5.44crore, in 2010-11 it was Rs 8.43crore.

According to BMC officers, there are about 15,000 traders in the capital, but the actual numbers would vary from 22,000 to 25,000. A survey is under process by tax officials whereby the BMC staff would be bringing more traders into the tax net.

The collection of trade licence fees is recommended in Section 554 of the Orissa Municipal Corporation (OMC) Act, 2003.

“We have also urged the people to come to the single window counter at the tax block and apply in the prescribed format where the traders or the trading organisations can point out the nature and type of the trade, plinth area of the place where the business transactions will be done, turnover, time table and duration of business hours, number of employees and number of the holding and area. It is a kind of a voluntary disclosure scheme and traders have to provide us the details on which their licence fee will be calculated,” said Anil Kumar Patnaik, officer in-charge of the licence section in BMC.

Traders found without a licence will be given three months to get registered otherwise disciplinary action will be initiated against them.

“The disciplinary action will, however, follow a due notice period. The punishments for traders doing business without proper trade licence will be followed as per the Section 654 of the Orissa Municipal Corporation Act, 2003,” said another senior tax department officer of the BMC.

The notification for the traders in the city to be assessed or reassessed was part of an information, education and communication (IEC) strategy of the local civic body. The different rates for traders and organisations have been fixed as per guidelines provided by the state government. The rate chart is also on display near the single window counter at the tax block.

The city is growing in all the directions and many new migrants are also coming here to set up their business.

“For example people coming from Aska or other parts of Ganjam district might not know that they have to deposit trade licence fee. Even some people belonging to the city are also not aware about the existence of such a fee structure. So, we are trying to educate them through IEC methods to include more traders in the tax net,” said Patnaik.

Apart from traders, others coming under the licensing section such as advertisers and hoarding and parking bidders were also communicated through letters to fill up their forms. This was done to maintain a proper database of the people with the BMC.

However, tax officers working in BMC also added that around Rs 25lakh trade licence is yet to be recovered from various traders as cases are pending in the local courts.

“The state government should expedite the process to solve the matter so that the money can come as earnings for the urban local body. In the last two years from the held up amount only Rs 20,000 could be recovered,” added one of the tax officers.