Excise Minister Damodar Rout on Tuesday denied that his department has any role in the de-notification of the State Highways by the Works Department (WD) to avoid the Supreme Court ban on liquor sell on highways.
Minister Rout said his department did not ask the WD to de-notify the highways and term them as urban roads. However, all the shops on urban roads excluding the National Highways would open, but they have to renew their licences.
It might be mentioned the roads passing through the municipal corporations, municipalities, notified area councils (NACs) and sub-divisional headquarters were re-designated as ‘urban roads’
Besides these, the Works Department had also classified all road sections falling within the limits of block and tehsil headquarters as urban roads.
With the SC ban on liquor shops on highways, the State Government would have lost a revenue of 1,100 crore with the closure of more than 1,500 shops.
But the Excise Department is yet to estimate by opening of the liquor shops on urban roads how much revenue will be generated.