In an enabling move that will go a long way in giving a boost to the hospitality sector, Delhi Lt Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena on Tuesday launched the modified unified portal for licensing of eating, lodging and boarding establishments.
This single window portal will help entrepreneurs, businessmen and start-ups in the hospitality sector by way of ensuring that a single easy to fill form, enables them to get / renew licenses from Delhi Police, MCD, NDMC, Delhi Fire Service and DPCC, simultaneously within a fixed timeframe of 49 days.
Establishments will now be able to operate under a much simplified, minimal and enabling licensing regime, in the National Capital.
Speaking on the occasion, the LG said this major step has reformed, simplified and overhauled a regulation that had been existing since 1980 and had become extremely obstructionist for the entrepreneurs in the hospitality sector. Taking on from the Prime Minister's dictum of "Ease of Doing Business", Saxena said governance should be about enabling, endeavour and enterprise and not obstructing and restricting them.
Addressing the gathering of restaurateurs, hoteliers and others, the LG said enabling the hospitality sector, with these simplified licensing norms, would prove to be the first step in the direction of a robust 'Night Time Economy' in Delhi. Since the existing license regime in the city was found to be restrictive in terms of the requirements and demands of the entrepreneurs and people, a High Level Committee under the Principal Secretary (Home), comprising top officers from all stakeholder departments was constituted to ease the same, Saxena informed.
The Committee was able to complete its task in record time and the result is there for all of us to see, in the shape of this "Modified Unified Portal for Licensing of Eating & Lodging / Boarding Establishments", launched today, he further said.
It was informed that, experiments like extending the timings of operations by eateries and restaurants in the city and clubs run by the DDA, had been encouraging. Similarly, alfresco and dinning on terraces were allowed. Residents of the city, who were going to establishments in the neighbouring hubs of NCR, got an option to patronise establishments in Delhi itself.
With the launch of modified portal, the entire process of granting and renewal of licenses has been made completely online and faceless. Establishments in the hospitality sector will now be able to get their licenses or renew them by submitting a much shorter, simpler and user-friendly Common Application Form (CAF) on the portal. This CAF will be applicable for all 05 Licensing Bodies that include, Delhi Police, MCD, NDMC, DPCC and Delhi Fire Service. In the new CAF, 140 fields have been removed and uploading of 28 documents has been done away with. Instead of 05 affidavits that was supposed to be submitted earlier, the applicants will now have to submit a Single Common Undertaking for all 05 agencies.