Siliguri, Dec. 28: The Siliguri Municipal Corporation will buy fake note detection machines for its five borough offices, mayor Bikash Ghosh announced in the monthly board meeting of the civic body today.

“In the last couple of months, there have been a number of instances when civic employees received fake currencies during collection of taxes. So we have decided to buy these machines and install them in all the borough offices,” said Ghosh.

The mayor, however, could not furnish details about the sum of fake currency that has been received by the employees.

The SMC will spend Rs 15,000 on the machines.

Besides, the civic body has also decided to get the borough offices covered under cash insurance schemes. The insurance amount will be Rs 4 lakh for Borough II and Rs 2 lakh each for the others. The annual collection of Borough II is around Rs 1 crore, the highest of the five, said Ghosh.

Under the schemes, the money collected at the borough offices will be insured. “The employees will not worry about what will happen if the money is stolen from the office or on way to the bank,” said the mayor.

Krishna Pal, a Trinamul councillor and Opposition leader of the civic board, had urged the mayor to simplify the process of getting trade licences in Siliguri town.

“After applying for a trade licence, one has to wait for at least six months to get it. But the civic authorities had earlier promised us that the entire process would be completed within two weeks,” said Pal.

Dilip Roy, the member mayor-in-council of electricity, whose department issues the trade licences, said he would take necessary steps to speed up the process.