Bhubaneswar: Director General of Police BK Sharma, who also heads the fire service department, Tuesday scrapped fire licenses of dance bars here, citing irregularities in issuance of No Objection Certificates (NOCs) to these bars.
He has also ordered officers to probe and find out those responsible for issuing these certificates violating the procedures. The excise commissioner has also been intimated about the cancelation of NOCs by the fire service department. Notably, the bar owners, after a prolonged legal battle, were recently permitted by the state excise commissioner to run dance bars or orchestra programmes in their bars. However, their happiness proved short-lived following the orders of the fire department.
The excise commissioner had given green signal to seven dance bars in the capital to employ women dancers with certain restrictions. The dance bar owners succeeded in getting the official permission to employ women dancers in their premises following the directions of the Orissa High court to the government.
In a letter written to Khurda Collector, the excise commissioner has permitted seven bars in the city to employ dancing girls in the first phase under the conditions laid down in the sub-section 5 of the Section 44 of Odisha Excise Rules, 2017.
The excise commissioner granted permission to Rain D’club, Green Field, Swagat International and Deepali Bar and three others. The government reportedly permitted the above dance bars to employ 11 girls for the orchestra programme.
Meanwhile, the Bhratiya Janata Party criticized the decision of the state government to allow bars to employ women dancers to run dance programmes.