MCD to revamp trade licence portal in 10 days

Delhi Police licensing for seven trades, including hotels, is scrapped. MCD will update its portal for easier approvals within 10 days.

With Delhi Police licensing requirements scrapped for seven major trades, including hotels and restaurants, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) will soon begin modifying the unified licensing portal to reflect the change, civic officials said on Thursday. The updated portal is expected to go live within 10 days.

MCD will soon begin modifying the unified licensing portal to reflect the change. (HT PHOTO)

A senior MCD official said the civic body’s IT department will carry out the changes. “We’ve also received approval to upgrade the portal while parallelly resolving existing glitches,” the official added.

Under the current system, applicants upload documents to a common portal, which are then pulled by agencies such as MCD, NDMC, Delhi Cantonment Board, and DPCC through their own interfaces. This often causes errors and missing documents. “In the upgraded system, the entire process—application, submission, and approvals—will be handled on a single platform,” the official said.

The development follows a June 19 order by the lieutenant governor withdrawing the requirement for police NOC for seven trade categories, including eating and boarding houses.

A second civic official said while the police layer has been removed, some conditions—such as mandatory CCTV installation—may be retained. “There are currently only 8,000–9,000 licensed eating houses. We expect this number to rise as stringent conditions such as background checks are no longer required,” the official said.

Civic agencies have their own trade regulations under respective Acts. Police licensing was an added layer that often created bottlenecks.

HT had earlier reported that the Delhi Police had the highest rejection rate for trade licence applications. MCD data shows that of 51,858 applications received by Delhi Police for eating and boarding house licences since October 2019, 36,903 were rejected—a rejection rate of 71.1%.