Punjab CM thrilled over overwhelming response to auction of liquor vends

By Satinder Bains
CHANDIGARH: Punjabis have lived up to their reputation in the auction of liquor vends. The fact has even been recognised by Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal who complimented the Exice Taxation department for good job.



The Chief Minister informed that there was approximately 6914 liquor vends in the State and the Department had received more applications than the number of licensing units in most of the places, which clearly meant that this transparent, open to all to apply. Thus, the Excise Policy 2010-11 received application money to the extent of Rs.150.20 crore as opposed to Rs.120 crore of the year 2009-10.

The Chief Minister stated that in the Excise Policy 2010-11, the Department had made a net increase of Rs.500 crore  reaching the total excise revenue to Rs.2500 crore,  which was easily the highest increase ever made in the history of Punjab by the Department.

The Chief Minister further stated that this year, the entire proceeds from the sale of applications would go to the welfare of Scheduled Castes and also be used to meet the expenditure being incurred on their pensions and ‘Shagun’ schemes.

Giving the details, Financial Commissioner Taxation Shivinder Singh Brar stated that this had been made possible because the Government adopted a still more applicant-friendly Excise Policy, wherein the Department had waived off the 5% deposit of security amount at the time of the submission of the application form.

Apart from this, the Department this time had allotted the liquor quota of each liquor vend in the State after conducting a detailed survey with regard to the potential of each and every vend in the State.  This survey brought out the real potential and thus, the Department was able to raise the quota of PML by 15%.

Excise & Taxation Commissioner A.Venu Prasad pointed out that the quota had been increased by a merely 15% on PML alone. There would be no quota increase with regard to IMFL.

Moreover, correspondingly, the State of Haryana have increased the quota of Punjab Medium Liquor (PML) from 750 lac Proof Liter (PL) to 900 lac Proof Litre (PL) which increase is more by 250 lac Proof liter (PL) Thus, the increase of quota in Punjab was much less in so far as the increased flow of liquor in the State of Punjab was concerned as opposed to Haryana.

According to  Prasad, further the increase in the sale price in Punjab had been to the extent of Rs.10/- per bottle with regard to IMFL and PML Rs.6.25 per bottle, as opposed to Haryana’s which had increased its price per bottle by 20% on IMFL across the Board which worked out to be much higher than the increases made in the Punjab Excise Policy.   He stated that in so far as the number of vends was concerned, there had been no substantial increase in the number of vends which remains at 6914 liquor vends as in the year 2009-10.

Prasad further stated that the draw by lotteries for disposal of liquor vends would be held on 19th March, 2010 at every District Headquarter. The State Government had already appointed Deputy Commissioners of the concerned districts as Observers for conducting the draw of the lotteries in a fair and transparent manner. The entire process of allotment will be videographed. The process of taking out of lotteries would be carried out in the presence of all the applicants who were present, invitees from the press etc. who would also take out the lotteries themselves, and no Departmental or any other Government official will take out even one single lottery, added  Prasad