Restaurants, bars violate norms

Visakhapatnam: A majority of restaurants and bars in Visakhapatnam city fail to follow norms. To run the restaurants and bars, the operators have to get permission from concerned departments.

While some of the operators continue without receiving no objection certificate from the fire department, the others are selling the brands at prices higher than MRP.

In some of the cases, the bar owners are running the show without getting the food licence, a few others are operating without having a trade licence.

Despite several irregularities witnessed in the operation of the restaurants and bars, officials from prohibition and excise are turning a blind eye towards them. Apparently, a number of bars and restaurants in the city are being operated, violating norms. In recent times, when the city police raided some of the bars and restaurants, they identified that 33 of them are continuing without having proper parking facilities.

In 60 bars, the management is running the business without obtaining no objection certificates. Even here, no official from the fire and safety department is bothered about taking action against the violators.

What is the reason behind such negligence among the officials is nothing but an open secret. In the guise of ‘formalities,’ even the officials concerned are minting lakhs of rupees from the bar operators.

But the concern is who would bear the brunt in case of any incident in a bar that has no NOC from the fire department? Unless the police teams carried out a series of surprise checks, such irregularities remain unexposed. With the prohibition and excise being a revenue generating department, the officials, however, are not focusing much on these irregularities. Instead of taking action when any unforeseen incident occurs, it is better the department officials monitor such irregularities from close quarters and consider precautionary measures more seriously.