Trade licence recovery falls short, civic body to expand enforcement network

The Trade License Wing of the Amritsar Municipal Corporation (MC) is facing major challenges in meeting its revenue target for the financial year 2025-26. Despite the presence of nearly 70,000 commercial establishments in the city, only around 13,000 have procured valid trade licences, officials revealed in a recent departmental meeting.

The department had set a revenue target of Rs 3.75 crore for this year. However, with such a low number of licences on record, the recovery is far from the goal. Officials cited the shortage of manpower and limited outreach as the main reasons behind the gap. Owing to the lack of staff, field visits to encourage traders to obtain licences have been minimal, leading to revenue losses for the municipal corporation.

To address the issue, Additional Commissioner Surinder Singh said MC Commissioner Gulpreet Singh Aulakh has issued orders to give additional powers under the Punjab Municipal Corporation Act, 1976, to health officers working in various zones. These include Municipal Health Officers Dr Kiran Kumar, Dr Yogesh Arora, and Dr Rama. They will now be authorised to approve trade licences within their respective areas, under various sections of the Act ranging from 276 to 350.

Superintendent, License Wing, Lovleen Sharma will continue to verify the licence applications and forward the approved proposals to the respective health officers. These officers will then ensure action is taken under Sections 323 and 343 to 350 through Sanitary Inspectors. To further boost field enforcement and recovery, Sanitary Supervisors will also be deployed alongside Sanitary Inspectors across the city. They will be responsible for collecting trade licence fees using POS (Point of Sale) machines and depositing the revenue into MC funds. These efforts will be closely monitored to ensure proper implementation.

In a related step, the MC Commissioner has also ordered the transfer of certain existing staff of the License Department to other departments to streamline operations and improve coordination. The MC hopes that these measures will help increase licence registrations, improve revenue collection and bring more businesses under regulation.