Out of some 1,200 cyber cafes in the city only one has got the necessary licence, issued by the city police. On Monday, most of these cyber cafes kept their shutters down fearing police action even as they claimed that the obsolete clauses in the licence processing norms and the lethargy of the municipal corporation have led to such an impasse. The Pune Central Cyber Café Association said injustice was being done to the cyber cafés in the city that have an aggregate daily turnover of around Rs 30 lakh.
The city police have been cracking down on cyber cafés for operating without license in the backdrop of the serial blasts in Ahmedabad and Bangalore.
“Two of 13 clauses in the set norms are obsolete and have been causing problems in getting the police licences. It is due to these two clauses that not a single cyber café has been able to get license from the police,” Rahul Pokale, president of Association, said in a press conference.
The two compulsory clauses that are turning out to be insurmountable obstacles to the cyber cafés in the city are submission of a premises map approved by the municipal corporation and a no objection certificate from building and construction as well as health department of the municipal corporation.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (Headquarters) Ravindra Sengaonkar said, “We are initiating legal action against the cyber cafes that are not abiding by the rules framed by the state government. So far, action has been initiated against 193 cyber cafes for not even applying for licenses. We have also rejected the applications of around 20 cafes. So far only one license has been issued.” He, however, could not say which particular cyber café got the licence. “I cannot say offhand which one it is,” he said.
The remaining applications are pending for want of documents and we have given one week time to the café owners to comply, he said.
We have sent three letters in the past three months to PMC, PCMC and the cantonment boards to issue the required no objection certificate for the license, Sengaonkar said.
When asked about the two clauses that were proving to be cumbersome for the cyber cafes, he said, “The rule is framed by the state government so we cannot do much and everyone has to abide by the rules.”
However, the cyber café association said its members were not being given sufficient time for getting the approvals from the municipal corporation.
“The PMC did not have the system in place till last week for issuing the required clearances and cyber cafés are forced to pay the price for the civic administration’s lethargy,” he said.
This, even as there is no need to comply with these two ‘obsolete’ clauses in Mumbai and Nagpur, he said
According to the association, around 400 applications of cyber cafés seeking licences are pending with the police due to non-submission of the municipal corporation approval.