LAHORE- Government officials are promoting redtapism culture and in this regard a number of shopkeepers of the City have blamed the Executive District Officer (EDO) Health is using delaying tactics regarding issuance of new licences, despite receiving fees, The Nation has learnt on Tuesday. The shopkeepers, while seeking anonymity told this scribe that hundreds of shopkeepers including owners of medical stores, bakeries, general stores, restaurants and retail shops have submitted applications for getting new food licences a couple of months ago, which still are pending with the EDO Health Omer Khan and he seemed reluctant to sanction their licences. He also is not ready even to satisfy them by giving any solid reason for this undue delay in issuance of the licenses, they added. They further said that mostly shopkeepers applied for getting license six month ago, valid only for the year 2010, which is going to end. They, while expressing their apprehensions in this regard said that authorities concerned might force them to redeposit fees for the year 2011. It would not be fair with the shopkeepers in case, the license issuing authorities force them to redeposit fees for the license, they would have to bear a loss of thousands of rupees after a notable raise in the license fees by CDG authorities during previous couple of years, which now start from Rs 1000 to Rs 50000 and earlier were Rs 25 to Rs 100 only, they added. They said that the authorities concerned also charged fees for issuance of medical certificates besides receiving license fees which is also not fair because the medical certificate fees also included in the fee amount fixed for licence. When this scribe tried to contact EDO Health, he was not available for his version. However, the District Officer Food Dr Masood Ashraf said while talking to TheNation that the department did not delay the process of issuance of licenses deliberately because the licences were issued after completion of scrutiny process and medical check up, which obviously takes time. He further said that transfer of former EDO and fumigation campaign also were the reasons of discontinuity of the entire process of issuance of licences. He said that fumigation campaign and insecticide spray for killing mosquitoes prolonged when dengue was getting out of control. So far as the issue of licenses was concerned, the issuance of licenses was the top priority of the department and it always try to issue maximum number of licenses because it was a major source of revenue for CDG. He said that the department generated record revenue of not less than Rs 9.5 million during current year.