BMC won’t grade eateries in Mumbai for ‘ease in business’

Restaurants and eateries in the city will not be graded any more, as the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has decided to do away with the grading system for eating houses.

The move comes as part of improving the ‘ease of doing business’ image of the city. It is likely to end corruption allegedly associated with allotting grades for the eateries. It will also bring down the number of permissions required for acquiring licences for them.

Presently, the BMC provides grades to restaurants and eateries based on parameters like the area, the accommodation capacity and amenities provided.

Based on some parameters such as the area being occupied by the hotel, the number of people it can house, and the amenities it provides, the civic body gives ‘A’, ‘B’, or ‘C’ grades to the cities eateries. In the city, there are 5906 grade I, II and III restaurants and eateries. Of them grade III are maximum in number (3,876), followed by grade I (1,679) and grade II (351).

In addition to this, the civic body has also scrapped other mandatory requirements such as the requirement of a storehouse, and the madira licence, which is issued in addition to the excise department permissions for selling liquor. The restaurants will have to pay a one-time fee to BMC for it.

Commenting on the matter, a senior civic official said, “We have already started a single window system for giving permissions to 38 different trades related to the public health department. Scrapping gradation of eateries is a further attempt to simplify this process. We had received lot of complaints about the gradation system. It will now require fewer permissions.”

In addition to this, medical check-up of all hotel staff can now be completed in private hospitals also.

The BMC has already simplified building construction and public health permissions as a part of improving its ‘ease of doing business’ image.