As most of the liquor shops have been closed in the national Capital, tipplers are finding it difficult to get liquor. Most of the booze lovers were roaming in their areas in search of open liquor vends to liquor.

In South Delhi’s two liquor vends were shut in Malviya Nagar, two liquor vends in Vasant Kunj area were closed, a liquor vend Green Park was found closed. Meanwhile, in East Delhi, four liquor vends were closed in Jagatpuri, a liquor vend in Star City Mall in Mayur Vihar was shut, two liquor vends in Cross River were shut, one in Saini Enclave and Dayanand Vihar market.

In Southeast, liquor was out of stock at liquor vend at Sibal Cinema and Badarpur village.

In West Delhi, three liquor vends at Patel Nagar were closed due to no stock of liquor, however, liquor shops were opened in Rajouri, Kiriti Nagar, Rajendra Nagar and Karol Bagh but with limited stock of liquor. “Since past three days, liquor shops have limited stock of selected liquor brands and too cheap ones. It is hard to find a shop which has all liquor brands available. Either they are out of stock or closed,” said Pankaj Kumar, a resident of Chhatarpur.

“Booze has been out of stock in east Delhi for the last one week. I had roamed around in Delhi to search for an open liquor store to buy booze but there were long queues and we had to wait for an hour to buy it,” said Aditya Mishra, a resident of Jagatpuri area. Some liquor buyers at Karol Bagh liquor vend said most of the people have also stocked booze as the policy was going to end on August 31.

The liquor store crunch at the Indira Gandhi International Airport and NDMC areas will continue for some more days even as the Delhi Government agencies are slated to take over the retail liquor business in the city from September 1, officials said.

They said over 300 vends have been readied in various parts of the city and 360 liquor brands have registered so far in consonance with the city Government's decision to go back to the old excise regime with its four agencies running 500 liquor in Delhi from September 1.

Several new shops opening from next month will be located near Metro stations where the footfall is high and safety measures are relatively better.

The Excise Department has also issued licences for liquor vends in six malls which will open from September 1, the officials said on Monday.

Also, the department will focus on premium vends in the coming days. These shops will have larger space and a variety of liquors of top brands, they said.

“We hope to soon issue licences for shops in NDMC areas as well as at the IGI airport after the private players exit the retail liquor business on August 30.

As of now, no licenses have been issued for these two areas,” said an Excise department officer. The process of registering liquor brands has also picked up pace and 44 manufacturers out of 60 who had applied have been registered.