Ceremony houses give civic body the slip

Abhishek Law
Kolkata, Jan. 5: Though ceremony houses, especially unregistered ones charging exorbitant fees, are mushrooming in the city, civic bosses at the Kolkata Municipal Corporation are happy to look the other way.
The civic body’s lack of infrastructure, coupled with its willingness to let these houses remain as they are, has turned out to be a blessing for the ceremonial houses. These houses, despite charging exorbitant sums varying between Rs 50,000 and Rs 1 lakh, get away by not paying any licence fees to the KMC because of their “irregular status”.
Municipal commissioner Mr Alapan Bandopadhyay said: “We are not concerned with the amount these marriage houses charge and we do not interfere in their day-to- day running. We see whether they clear their licence fees with the KMC or not.” While the civic body is authorised to provide licences to these ceremony houses, the KMC has no power to check whether they are registered or not.
Mr Bandopadhyay said: “We provide licences after judging matters on a case-to-case basis. Ceremony houses cannot just crop up anywhere and everywhere in the city.”
He also added that at present, the KMC has tightened its norms for granting licences.
Clearances are obtained after the civic officials judge several parameters such as the amount of parking space that the ceremony house can provide at the time of the event, clearances from other departments like conservancy, among others. “Who will judge whether the ceremony houses have a valid licence? Unless specific complaints come, no one can check their validity,” an official said.
Officials, however, said that earlier, when ceremony houses fell under the “green category” of trades, almost all applicants were provided licences. This led to the mushrooming of marriage halls in the city.
Later, these marriage houses were brought under the “red category” where civic officials gave licences only after verification. But even then, there were lapses.
Ceremony houses continued without seeking licences from the KMC. Only when Calcutta High Court rapped the civic body, almost six to eight months ago, were norms tightened.
When asked, member, mayor-in-council (Buildings and Licence) Mr Dipankar Dey, said: “We have asked all ceremony houses in the city to register themselves with the KMC.
A 31-March deadline has been fixed. If they fail to meet the deadline, we will take penal measures.” When asked about the steps that the city civic body would take regarding “irregular” ceremony houses, Mr Bandopadhyay failed to mention anything concrete. He said: “We do not immediately want a crackdown on these ceremony houses. Social as well as sentimental values are attached to them.”
On the issue of infrastructure shortage, he claimed that the KMC may take the help of police to close down the places.
“If needed, we will issue notices asking people not to book these places. But at present, we are trying to re-orient an old system and doing so would take some time.”


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