Nagpur: Ration shopkeepers in the state will have to pay Rs500 for a licence, up from Rs100, and Rs100 a year to renew it, up from Rs 20, under a revised fee structure issued by the food, civil supplies and consumer protection department.
In a separate order, the department has scrapped the 1976 requirement that shopkeepers keep paper registers. Fees were last revised by a GR of June 7, 2021, which took into account the administrative cost of the online process. Earlier structures rested on GRs of Dec 20, 1997, Feb 2, 2002 and Nov 3, 2007. In the second order, the department has superseded a circular of Aug 24, 1976, which had asked fair price shopkeepers to maintain various registers and preserve them for specified periods.
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The department said the state is putting licensing of ration shops and related services online under the Centre’s Ease of Doing Business reforms. The application fee for grant or renewal of an authorisation has gone up from Rs5 to Rs50. The fee for a duplicate authorisation letter or licence has risen from Rs50 to Rs500. The late fee for renewal after the due date has increased from Rs1 a day to Rs50 a day. The deposit is now being made uniform for administrative ease and uniformity in policy, the GR states. The department noted that all work in ration shops is now done through e-PoS machines and online portals, so separate entries in the various registers are no longer needed. Download the TOI App.
Both govt resolutions (GRs) were issued on Friday.
Authorised shopkeepers in the Mumbai-Thane rationing area, other municipal corporation areas and other urban areas will all pay Rs5,000. The deposit was so far Rs5,000 for Mumbai-Thane, Rs3,000 for other municipal corporation areas and Rs2,000 for other urban areas. For shops in villages, the deposit has doubled from Rs1,000 to Rs2,000. For ration shops and retail kerosene licences run by self-help groups, it has risen from Rs2,500 to Rs5,000.
The security deposit has been made uniform. The new rates will come into force from the date the service goes live on the department’s RCMS portal. Until then, fees will be collected under the existing offline procedure at the old rates. Shopkeepers who have already paid the deposit need not pay the revised amount again.