CM Stalin to form panel to simplify licensing for rural small traders: TN Minister I Periasamy

CHENNAI: Hitting out at the Leader of Opposition Edappadi K Palaniswami for criticising the recent GO ‘mandating’ licence for even small traders such as petty shops in rural areas, State Rural Development Minister I Periasamy on Thursday said that the practice of issuing licence to traders in suburban areas was being done in the name of “Dangerous and Offensive Trade Licence” even during the tenure of EPS and the LoP has stated as usual without knowing facts.

Minister Periasamy also announced that Chief Minister MK Stalin has decided to constitute a consultation committee comprising department officials and traders to simplify the process of issuing licenses to small traders in rural areas.

Asserting that the Dravidian model regime stands by the traders, minister Periasamy referred to a representation by a federation of traders associations with the Chief Minister on Thursday and said that CM Stalin has issued orders to constitute a committee of concerned officials and traders representatives to study the demands of the traders. The committee will examine the process of simplifying the issue of licences and make recommendations to the government. The new law will be enforced based on the recommendation of the committee, the minister added.

Adding that the trade licence practice in village panchayats was introduced in 1958, which was confirmed under section 159 of the Tamil Nadu Panchayats Act 1994 enacted in the distant AIADMK regime, the Rural Development Minister said that the licences were issued in the name of “Dangerous and Offensive Trade Licence” during the tenure of Palaniswami. “Even without knowing this, after heading a government, he (EPS) has woken up from his slumber and issued a statement as usual,” remarked Periasamy.

Clarifying that the old practice insisted on annual renewal of the trade licences and the rural local bodies were collecting higher fees using their resolutions, the minister said. He added that the GO has simplified the dangerous and offensive trade licence, making it a mere trade licence with provision to avail them online, renew them every three years, and issue deemed approval in case of delay in acting on such applications within 30 days.

Pointing out that the number of trade licences rose from 85,649 in 2011-12 during Jayalalithaa’s tenure to 2,05,100 in 2020-21 tenure of EPS, the minister said that the fee collection increased from Rs 5.40 crore to Rs 12.90 crore in the same period. “All these data are available in files. He cannot deny it. After doing everything, he is now pretending to speak for the rural traders. The people are not ready to buy it.”

Circulating a copy of a gazette notification issued in 2018 during the previous AIADMK regime, fixing licence fee for various traders, including petty shops and tailor shops at the union and panchayat levels in Coimbatore, the minister said, “I am only reminding that licence fees for traders existed even in the AIADMK tenure.”