Panel formed to ease licences for Delhi’s restaurants, hotels

Currently, hotels and restaurants need several permissions from multiple authorities through a long and tedious process that often leads to unwarranted delays.

Restaurants and hotels in Delhi may soon find it easier to procure permits for a wider bouquet of services like late-night and alfresco dining as lieutenant governor V K Saxena on Monday constituted a high-powered committee of officials to streamline the process aimed at providing a boost to the food and hospitality sector.

The panel will also seek to minimise documentation, set fixed timelines for grant of licenses, provide a single-window portal for permits, and promote self-regulation. (Sanjeev Verma/HT PHOTO)

Currently, hotels and restaurants need several permissions from multiple authorities through a long and tedious process that often leads to unwarranted delays. The committee will focus on reducing the number of licenses, tweaking and deleting archaic regulations rooted in subordinate legislation.

The panel will also seek to minimise documentation, set fixed timelines for grant of licenses, provide a single-window portal for permits, and promote self-regulation.

The committee is headed by Delhi’s principal home secretary Ashwini Kumar, and has representatives from the IT department, Delhi Pollution Control Committee, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi, Delhi Police, Fire Services and New Delhi Municipal Council.

The lieutenant governor has directed the committee to submit its recommendations within 15 days, his office said in a statement on Monday.

Obtaining licences to open a restaurant in Delhi is a challenging task, said Manpreet Singh, treasurer of the National Restaurants Association of India. “An applicant has to visit different offices, which takes a lot of time because these authorities demand various types of documents. The simplification of all this will not only boost trade, but also create jobs,” he said.

The move comes close on the heels of Saxena’s recent decision to allow 314 establishments, which include online delivery of food, medicine shops, and logistics, transport and travel services to offer round the clock services, a demand that has been pending since 2016.

“We do not have the status of all 314 establishments, but all can operate round the clock and many of them are doing so,” an official said, not wanting to be identified.

Saxena has underlined the need for “rationalizing licensing requirements, easing prohibitive regulations and processes, ensuring faceless and online interface between regulators and entrepreneurs to mitigate harassment and corruption, and ensuring security through proper law & order,” his office said in the statement.

In hospitality establishments, entrepreneurs are often subjected to cumbersome licensing and inspecting processes of Delhi Police, municipalities, fire department and the state pollution watchdog. “These processes and requirements are often found to be outdated, unnecessarily restrictive, coercive and discretionary. They have often led to complaints of harassment and corruption as well, resulting in the fact that unlike other global and Indian cities, Delhi’s hospitality sector has yet not achieved its full potential,” the statement added.

The decision will facilitate the ease of doing business and boost the food and hospitality sector in the national capital, said Brijesh Goyal, chairman of the Chamber of Trade and Industry, a lobby group.

“But, restaurant, hotel and banquet associations should be included in this committee and their suggestions should be included,” Goyal said. “If officers sit in a closed room and take decisions, then a policy for the benefit of the people will not be made.”

There should be single-window clearance for the entire licencing process, he added.