The mega liquor vends under l 1A license in Punjab would run under constant vigil of the Punjab Government. Clearing the decks on Excise policy for 2016-17, Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal on Monday told the state Assembly that the provisioning of l 1A licenses has been made to bring transparency in the sale of liquor in the state and no limit has been fixed for issuing the licenses.
Putting forward his clarification on the matter, Badal said that the provision of l1A licenses was not new, but the Government has certainly added some cautious measures to check illegal sale of liquor in the state.
He said that all the license holders in this category will function under the eyes of an Excise and Taxation officer and an officer will be deputed particularly for every such license holder.
CCTV cameras would be installed in the l 1A stores so that the government functionary can keep a constant watch on the stocks of these stores, he added.
He also clarified that the government has not set any limit for issuing l 1A license and the authority for the licenses would be given by the liquor producing industry and whosoever gets the authority letter from the industry for l 1A license, would be issued license by the Excise department.
The objection of the provision of l1A licenses was raised by Congress MlA Balbir Singh Sidhu who said that the government was trying to monopolize the liquor trade by bringing in provisions of l1A license.He objected on the plans of issuing only these licenses in the state and said that with the new provision the entire liquor trade will be limited to only 5 traders.
The discussion on Excise policy, took a witty turn when the ruling and opposition MlAs had a clash on the topic of consuming liquor. Senior leader of Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) Tota Singh exhorted the legislators to shun consuming liquor.
The debate got lively when Congress MlA Kuljeet Singh Nagra directly pointing towards Deputy CM Sukhbir Singh Badal appealed all to take oath that whoever consumes liquor would be a sinner.
On the other hand, raising strong objection on the recently announced Excise policy of the state, Punjab Congress chief Capt Amarinder Singh said that the SAD-BJP government was trying to raise money through allotting liquor vends for the period which is beyond the term of the present government. He said that the licenses granted for the period beyond the tenure of the government would be cancelled by the new government and it may cause loss to the traders of their license fee.