Pune industries protest licence fee hike

PUNE, June 14: The steep hike in the industrial licence fees by the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation PCMC effected from April thi...

PUNE, June 14: The steep hike in the industrial licence fees by the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation PCMC effected from April this year has evoked strong protests among big and small scale industries. The Mahratta Chamber of Commerce Industries and Agriculture MCCIA, which has already taken up the cudgels against the PCMC, has demanded that status quo be maintained regarding the matter.

The MCCIA has informed the PCMC that the state government has reacted positively to its demand of exemption to the industries in the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation MIDC area from obtaining the industrial licence.

The MCCIA said that State Development Commissioner Industries Jayant Kawale, in a letter to principal secretary urban development department Nand Lal, urged for a making a suitable amendment in the Bombay Provincial Municipal Corporation BPMC Act to exempt industries located in MIDC areas or approved cooperative or private industrial estates from obtaining industrial licence fromthe municipal corporations every year.

The development commissioner stated that the provision of obtaining licence every year was meant only to regulate the location of industries or factories and to prevent causing any nuisance to the civic population in the neighbourhood. Industries located in the designated industrial areas such as the MIDC areas are also required to obtain permission every year, which the letter said, was an undue harassment and hardship to the industrialists. The objective of industrial regulation has already been achieved by having a designated industrial area like the MIDC and therefore there is no need for industries to get the licence from the municipal corporations every year, Kavale said.

President of the MCCIA Prataprao Pawar in his letter to the PCMC has stated that the licence fees has been increased without considering the ground realities and at a time when the industries are in the grip of a sluggish market situation. The MCCIA, he said, was strongly protesting to thehike in the licence fees as well as the provision of penalty which is ten per cent of the annual licence fees. The hike in licence fees itself is nearly 200 to 300 per cent, which is killing, he stated.

In its earlier letter the MCCIA charged the PCMC that the hike in the fees was effected only with a view to increase its revenue. It said that not only the industries will be unable to bear any increase in any kind of fees at this juncture but it would prove to be the last straw on the camel8217;s back. Several industries have sent separate letters to the PCMC and demanded that the hike in the licence fees should be withdrawn.

PCMC commissioner B I Nagrale in a recent meeting with the industries said that the latter should come out with a detailed proposal regarding the licence fees which could be forwarded to the standing committee for discussion.