Cuttack, July 10: The municipal corporation has granted licence to 56 kalyan mandaps (banquet halls) which do not have the required parking area.

Last August, the civic body implemented a new policy, approved by the high court, for granting licenses to banquet halls. The guidelines, defining the eligibility criteria for a licence to run a banquet hall, were framed for the first time after the high court made acquiring a licence from the municipal corporation mandatory.

The corporation had since received 187 applications for licences. "We completed field verification of information supplied in 114 applications in two phases. Fifty-one applications were rejected after scrutiny, while seven others are under consideration," the Cuttack Municipal Corporation's additional commissioner Suman Behera told The Telegraph today.

Banquet halls had faced the heat after Orissa High Court slammed the civic body for allowing kalyan mandaps to run without parking areas, expressing concern that these halls triggered traffic chaos in their vicinity and beyond during events. The approach roads to kalyan mandaps were also not suitable for parking vehicles.

The new guidelines had made earmarking 40 per cent of built up area for parking "a statutory requirement". The civic body, however, granted licences to kalyan mandaps functioning for at least five years and with 20 per cent built-up area earmarked for parking on the condition that there would be no parking on public roads.

It has also granted licences to venues whose owners came up parking facilities on land acquired on rent or lease. "We are strictly enforcing the parking criteria even after granting licence. We are imposing a penalty of Rs 10,000 in cases where parking is not done in the place mentioned in the applications," said Behera, who is also the nodal officer for implementation of the new policy.

Under the new rule, the kalyan mandaps have been granted licences on the condition that the owners would install CCTV cameras, fire extinguishers and ensure that there was no noise pollution beyond the prescribed time and decibel.

Besides, the civic body has also assessed the licensed banquet halls as commercial holding for annual holding tax. The owners are expected to pay users fee for solid waste management in advance. "The monthly fee for kalyan mandaps with 500-plus capacity and above 1,000 capacity have has fixed at Rs 4,000 and Rs 8,000, respectively. However, owners who pay user fee for one year in advance are being given a month's rebate," said Bikash Ranjan Behera, chairman of the civic body's standing committee for Licence & Appeal.

Licence fee for kalyan mandaps range between Rs 5,000 and Rs 9,000, depending on the facilities provided.

The high court had taken up the case of the functioning of kalyan mandaps as a PIL after a letter petition alleged that parking of vehicles during social functions in these halls had been a growing menace as most of them did not have parking areas and dumped garbage on the roadside as none of them had a solid waste disposal system.