Police have started checking if guest houses and lodges in Salt Lake, New Town, Rajarhat and adjoining areas have valid licences to run the units, a Bidhannagar Commissionerate officer said on Wednesday.

Teams are checking every document, including licence, as well as the registers to keep a track on the number of guests checking in or out every day, the officer said.

Sector V, Baguiati, Lake Town, Teghoria, and Kaikhali are the other areas where cops are running the checks. Police are working to create a database on the number of guest houses in these areas, the officer said.

The ones that cannot furnish the papers will be marked out. The police, along with the Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation, will send them notices.

“The number of guest houses that have police permission can be counted on one’s fingers in these areas,” another officer of the commissionerate said.

In Salt Lake, a building has to be recorded as a commercial property with the civic body’s urban development department if a guest house or lodge operates out of it, an official of the department said. “In case a guest house is operating out of one or two floors of a residential building, the floors need to be converted into the commercial property category by paying a fee to the urban development department.”

The operators of a guest house or a lodge need a police permit to run such a facility and a no-objection certificate from the fire department. The kitchen, too, needs to be listed separately and will be subjected to checks by the civic body’s health department at regular intervals.

The building plan needs to be sanctioned by the civic body and guest houses and lodges need a certificate of approval issued by the tourism ministry.

“Most guest houses in Salt Lake do not have permits and other papers. They do not even have a trade licence, which is a basic prerequisite,” the urban development department said.

Operators who fail to furnish the licence and permit issued by the police and the fire department will be given some time before the authorities take legal steps against them, an officer said.

“We are conducting regular checks on guest houses. We will organise regular meetings with owners and ask them to apply for the police permit and complete other paperwork that is required to run a guest house. We will give them a list of dos and don’ts and carry out sensitisation drives,” Mukesh, the Bidhannagar police commissioner, said.

In September, three guest house workers had been arrested following allegations by 10 madrasa teachers from Malda that they had been driven out of a guest house in Salt Lake and refused accommodation in another because of their identity.

In August, a man from Punjab was injured after an associate’s gun went off inside a Salt Lake guest house. The police had said it was an accident.