Barring 66 liquor shops for which no application was submitted, licenses were awarded for 437 shops enabling the licensees to sell Country Made liquor (CMl), Beer and Indian Made Foreign liquor (IMFl) through lottery system held in each of the 13 districts on Tuesday.
The number of liquor shops across the State is 503. However, the traders opting out of 66 of them, the number has come down to 437. Besides, licenses were awarded for 51 liquor shops on the same day for which only one application was received for each. With no application being received for 66 out of 503 liquor shops from the traders, the state administration has extended the last day of submitting applications to Wednesday noon. Notably, the State excise department has increased the excise revenue target to Rs 2,310 crore for 2017-18 from last year's collection of Rs 1,905 crore. In the year 2016- 17, though the revenue target had been fixed at Rs 2100 crores, the state excise department had managed to achieve Rs 1905 crores.
The lottery was held for Chamoli district at the collectorate amid tight security with the presence of the district magistrate Ashish Joshi. There are 15 Indian made foreign liquor (IMFl) shops in the district. licenses were awarded for 12 shops located at Dewal, Gopeshwar, Joshimath, Tharali, Pokhri, Gairsain, Narayanbagar, Chamoli, Gwaldam, Ghat, Maithan and Nandprayag. No application had been received seeking licenses for liquor shops located at Karnprayag, Gochar and Mahalchauri. The administration had received 832 applications for 12 IMFl shops. The administration officer directed all the license holders to submit the license fees by Tuesday itself at the excise office failing which the licenses would be cancelled. The Chamoli excise department had earned revenue of Rs 37 crore against assigned target of 36 crore for the year 2016-17. For the year (June 1, 2017 to March 31, 2018), Rs 43 crore has been fixed as the revenue target of the district by the state administration.
In Nainital district, the officers concerned have distributed licenses to the seekers through lottery system for 61 liquor shops. Only single application was received for two shops and the licenses were awarded. No application had been received for 10 liquor shops in the district. A total of 2911 applications had been received for 61 liquor shops and district excise department had earned Rs six crore as precession fees from the applicants. The district had earned revenue of Rs 175 crores 2016-17. The district excise department has fixed revenue target of Rs 219 crores for the year 2017-18. In Dehradun, amid tight security, the district administrative officer has allocated licenses for the shops selling Country Made liquor (CMl), Beer and Indian Made Foreign liquor (IMFl) to the applicants through lottery system on Tuesday. Not a single application from the interested traders had been submitted seeking license to open booze shops for 10 out of 80 such vends located across the district. The period for submitting applications had ended on Friday. In all, 7785 traders had submitted application for procuring licenses for the rest 70 shops.
