Hyderabad: Trade fee is all they pay for surrogacy centres

Hyderabad: The surrogacy centre that was busted at Jubilee Hills was registered with GHMC as an infertility centre and had acquired trade licence. However, there was no mention of the fostering of surrogate mothers anywhere in the applications. The GHMC has identified several specialised clinics who mention that they are hospitals in their applications while applying for trade licence but do not mention the actual operations.  

The trade licence fee is levied as per the kind of commercial operation. In the case of clinic or hospital, they are registered under different categories and the fee slab also varies. A senior officer from the GHMC town planning department explained, “Firstly, residential complexes cannot be utilised for commercial operations. Trade licence is given to different categories based on the type of commercial activity. Even hospitals that have different slabs for inpatient and outpatient have to get different licences.”

The official said that the trade license is calculated on the location of the building, the fee is more if it is adjacent to the main road. The one at Jubilee Hills was a residential building, yet commercial operations were going on in the building, the official said. The GHMC is not the regulatory body authorised to check on these inpatient and outpatient hospitals. The surrogacy centre at Jubilee Hills that was raided had also flouted the building norms.