Cheers! Money from liquor will fund the cure of alcoholics and drug addicts in Punjab. Punjab Cabinet on Tuesday cleared the proposal for creation of a fund from liquor licence fee for social responsibility activity such as running de-addiction programmes and other activities.
The Cabinet has put its stamp of approval to the Punjab Development Fund Ordinance, 2014. Under this, a special fund would be created “for community assets of durable nature for the welfare scheme of liquor dealers for drug de-addiction and culture purposes or any other purpose decided by the Board constituted for the management of fund”.
The Board, for the management of the Fund, would be constituted under the chairmanship of the state Excise and Taxation Minister. As per this decision, 25 per cent amount of application fee for liquor vends would go to this dedicated fund as a measure of social responsibility of Excise and Taxation Department.
Punjab comes second after Kerala with per capita consumption of alcohol at 7.9 litres, against the national figure of four litres. Early this year, Punjab Government approved its excise policy, estimated to fetch Rs 4,671 crore of revenue from liquor — Rs 724 crore more against the previous fiscal year’s revenue collection which was Rs 3,947 crores.
Under the new excise policy, the rates were fixed for liquor to be sold during functions at marriage palaces, and the repeated offenders may lose license in case they sold liquor at a higher rates. For first offender, the fine is Rs one lakh will, for second, fine will be doubled and in case of third offence, licence of such vend will be cancelled.