Hyderabad, August 05: The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation has decided to bring all private recognised schools in the city under the ambit of trade licence fee.
Currently, the managements do not need to obtain a trade licence from the civic body to run the schools as permission from the school education department is sufficient to establish an educational institution.
The trade licence fee will be in addition to the property tax being paid on school buildings. It may also be mentioned here that the fire prevention wing of the GHMC has already asked the schools to install fire safety equipment by August end.
In the first phase, the corporation plans to target only the corporate schools and other big institutions. There are a total 4,700 primary, upper primary and high schools in Greater Hyderabad, of which nearly 2,000 schools are managed by corporate and big managements.
A senior official in the GHMC said that the trade licence fee is being fixed by taking into account the number of students. “The proposal is to levy an annual trade licence fee of Rs 5,000 for the first 50 students, Rs 10,000 for 100 students. Thereafter, the trade licence fee will be calculated at the rate of Rs 2,500 for every 50 students,” the official said.
The GHMC joint commissioner, health and sanitation, Mr Ashok Samrat, said that they will start serving trade licence fee notices on corporate and other big schools within a week.
Meanwhile, the AP School Parents Coordination Committee’s joint convener, Mr S. Govinda Raju, said they will oppose the GHMC’s decision.
“The corporation’s move, in a way will legalise education as a ‘trade’ and this will allow the managements to collect fees as per their whims and fancies,” he said.
A correspondent of a private school said they will go to the High Court against the GHMC’s “ridiculous” idea.