The issue of liquor kept rocking the House from the question hour to the zero hour on the concluding day of the two- day special session of the Vidhan Sabha on Tuesday with the Congress MlA Preetam Singh throwing a question at the State Government to spell out its strategy regarding the sale of liquor in the face of widespread protest from the people.
During the question hour, MlA Qazi Nizamuddin stepped into the matter while asking the government whether it was aware of the people staging protest against the relocation of the booze vends. “Does the state government have any plan to put complete ban on the sale of liquor in the stateIJ” he asked.
The state excise minister Prakash Pant intervened, saying that they were acting on the Supreme Court ruling, ordering the shifting of the booze vends 500 meters away from the National Highways and the state highways. We are taking action too to execute the apex court order of shifting the same 220 meters away from the residential areas under the local bodies with population of less than 20,000. While the owners of the displaced shops are searching for new places to relocate them the people are staging stirs against relocation. In all, 530 shops have been affected across the state. In Nainital, the figure is 61. However, 33 of them have re-opened at new places. In Udham Singh Nagar, while 102 shops were affected 66 of them have been relocated,” he said.
While making it clear that the state government had no plan to impose a total ban on the sale of liquor in the state, he said that the current policy framed during the Congress regime would be replaced with a new one applicable for the year 2017-18. He said that the suggestions of the MlAs would be considered while drafting the new policy.
Replying to the Opposition charge that the state government has converted the state highways into other district roads (ODR) to spare the liquor vends the hassle of relocation, Pant dubbed it as unfounded. He said that just 30 out of the 530 displaced shops have benefited by the government order. Replying to the question raised by Munna Singh Chouhan regarding the quantum of the excise revenue lost between April 2016 to April 2017, Pant said that in April 2016, the excise department has registered revenue of Rs 151 crore while it is mere Rs 90 crore in April 2017.
During the zero hour, MlAs Indira Hridayesh, Preetam Singh and Govind Singh Kunjwal raised the issue of the people hitting the roads against the sale of liquor and their relocation to the areas they are residing in. Pant said that they were yet to frame a new excise policy. “Once it comes up the Opposition MlAs are welcome to raise questions. Presently, we are merely working on previous government’s excise policy,” he said.