99 per cent of spas, massage and beauty parlours in city have no licence

According to a Corporation official, there are around 600 massage parlours, spas and beauty parlours in Chennai. “Of them, only six have availed the licence. Besides this, 10 applications are under scrutiny,” the official said.

Among the six beauty parlours that have availed trade licence, three are in Royapuram zone and the rest in Teynampet zone. When asked, the official said severe action would be taken after February against the establishments yet to avail the licence.

To prevent misconduct at these facilities, the civic body had mandated licences from April 1 and included verification and no-objection certificate from the police mandatory to grant the licence.

Several conditions have also been laid, including installing CCTV cameras, basic educational qualification for employees and time of functioning. As per the new norms, the massage services should not be provided behind a locked door and external doors should be kept open during the working hours. Sexual activities should not be allowed inside the centres. Trade licences for the beauty parlours were brought in following a HC direction in 2014 asking the government to bring the massage centres and beauty parlours under the legislation “so that the public order, decency and morality maintained”. Meanwhile, Chennai Corporation officials sealed 20 shops in Teynampet zone for functioning without trade licence, on Saturday. “Raids were conducted in Triplicane, Mylapore and Thousand Lights,” an official said.

Earlier, the civic body had issued notices to around 80 shops that are functioning without licence. Of them, around 60 shops responded to the notice and availed it.There are over a lakh of shops in the city, which ought to receive trade licence from the civic body. However, as per official records, only 75,000 shops are functioning with licence.