The Guwahati Municipal Corporation (GMC) on Friday served notices to private hospitals in Guwahati asking them to submit occupancy certificates.

Asking all private hospitals in the city to submit occupancy certificates, the GMC gave a time period of seven days for the same.

Notably, this is the third time that the GMC has issued notices to private hospitals in the city. In October, last year, the municipal body had ordered 61 private hospitals to submit occupancy certificates.

The local government body in the notification had mentioned that reason for notifying the hospitals and nursing homes was "record keeping" and "further verification purposes".

After the first notice, 30 hospitals had submitted the certificates to GMC. Reportedly, many healthcare establishments do not have the required occupancy certificates.

Following the issuance of the second notice, a further 16 healthcare institutions submitted the certificates.

Meanwhile, 15 other hospitals were yet to respond to the notice compelling the GMC to issue the third notice in that regard.

The list of hospitals and nursing homes that had been notified to submit the certificate included Excelcare Hospitals, Hayat Hospital, Ayursundra Hospitals, Narayana Super Specialty Clinic, GNRC Hospital Ltd, Rahman Hospital, Arya Hospital, Satribari Christian Hospital, Borthakur Clinic, Northeast Health City Hospital, Swagat Hospital, Down Town Hospital, Sanjivani Hospital, Marwari Hospital, Nem Care Hospital, Rahman Hospital, and Apollo Hospital among others.

Notably, the occupancy certificate is issued by the municipal body for which an application has to be submitted to the planning branch of GMC with all required documents.

Following the application, a field engineer inspects the construction of building and submits a report based on which the certificate is issued.

The criteria based on which the certificate is issued, include the existence of a rain water harvesting provision, the availability of parking space in the area provided as per drawing of plans.

The building must also have provisions for segregation of waste and handover of waste to authorized Non Governmental Organistations (NGOs). The criterion also include requirement for plantation of minimum 10 evergreen trees inside the plot.