Cuttack, Dec. 5: Resentment is brewing among traders because of the civic body's new decision to collect a user fee that has been made mandatory for renewal of trade and food licences in the city.

According to the decision, all commercial units will now have to pay a monthly user fee ranging from Rs 500 to Rs 3,000 for proper solid waste management in the city. Official sources said the civic body was not renewing the traders' food and trade licences unless they submitted an authentic receipt of payment of the user fee.

The traders at Malgodown, the largest wholesale and retail market of the state, have opposed the proposed fee collection and hike in charges of issuing trade licence by the Cuttack Municipal Corporation.

"We are against the civic body's decision as small traders like us are now being asked to pay Rs 36,000 annually as user fee. This is not justified," said Paresh Sahoo, a wholesale trader of essential commodities.

Sahoo further said that already the traders' overall business had been adversely affected by demonetisation and "the civic body's new proposal has compounded our problems".

"It is a complete harassment of traders as we are now running from pillar to post to get renewal of our food licence, which has now been pending for the past two months," said Ramesh Jena, who runs a grocery store.

Earlier, the civic body used to collect a monthly user fee for collection and disposal of solid waste only from hotels, restaurants, kalyan mandaps, malls and other major commercial centres ranging from Rs 200 to Rs 4,000. However, it has now been extended to all the commercial units irrespective of their nature of trade and business with various slabs.

The move that aims to bring in uniformity in collection of revenue across municipal corporations in the country has so far not gone down well with the traders.

The Cuttack Chamber of Commerce's joint secretary Prafula Chatoi told The Telegraph that a trader at Malgodown was earlier paying Rs 75 annually towards trade licence to the civic body, but it had now been raised to Rs 2,000.

"It would had been more appropriate if the civic body had increased the trade licence renewal to Rs 150 or Rs 200 instead of Rs 2,000 as we are not getting any benefit from the corporation, because it has failed to address basic issues at Malgodown," said Chatoi.

Chatoi further said the corporation had also not taken any concrete measures to maintain sanitation or improve drainage channels and street lights.

Municipal commissioner Gyana Das, on the other hand, said the user fee was being collected according to the guidelines of the Centre and the state government. "Such proposals have been made to ensure proper sanitation in different parts in the corporation limits by standardising collection of user fee and other revenue," said Das.