Festive cheer for Delhi’s restauranteurs! Delhi’s standalone restaurants will no longer need approval from the tourism ministry to open up, directs Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and reported IE. The move that comes with immediate effect is taken with the aim of promoting ease of doing business in the city.
The statement by the Tourism Department said that complying to the decision taken by the CM, the voluntary scheme of granting permission to standalone restaurants before opening an outlet has been discontinued. The decision comes after a meeting chaired by the Kejriwal and attended by restaurant owners and Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia. The move is expected to bring good news for restaurateurs who incurred major losses during the lockdown.
The issue of multiple approvals and licences was raised during a meeting in October between the CM and the representatives of the restaurant’s body. After discussing norms of making restaurant business easier, Kejriwal directed officials to remove hassles in the road of doing business and hence the scheme of granting approval was dismissed.
Until July 2003, the task for granting approvals to eateries or restaurants with more than 30 seats was implemented by the Union Tourism Ministry in all the cities. From July 2003, states were asked to come up with their own guidelines to grant approval to restaurants. Delhi Tourism Department too adopted the scheme and had been executing it until recently dismissed by the CM.
