Facing criticism from various quarters about some provisions of the new Excise policy, the state cabinet has enforced some amendments in the policy. Informing about these amendments after the cabinet meeting, the Cabinet Minister and government spokesperson Madan Kaushik told media persons at state secretariat on Friday that the proposal to create cluster of four liquor shops for auction has been dispensed with and the earlier system of single shop auctions has been restored.
Under the new policy the Excise department had planned to make a cluster of four shops within an aerial distance of 20 km however questions on the intent behind this plan were raised.
Informing about another amendment in the policy the Minister said that the bar license for the hotels with 20 rooms or less would now be given for three years.
The owners of these bars would have to deposit yearly fees but now they would not have to go through the process of renewal of licenses. A relief of 10 percent in the annual fee would be granted for one time deposit of the fees of three years.
In third amendment to the excise policy, the state cabinet increased the fees for license to sell Wine and high end foreign liquor brands in the departmental stores from Rs 3 lakhs to Rs 5 lakhs. However giving a relief to such stores, the cabinet reduced the mandatory annual turnover from Rs 5 Crores to Rs 3 Crores. The Minister clarified that the state Government has no intension to earn profits from sale of liquor but at the same time it has to ensure that measures to discourage flow of spurious and smuggled liquor are taken.
In another decision, the State cabinet gave the authority to the Uttarakhand Ayurveda University for taking a decision on the issue of 17 students of Gurukul and Rishikul colleges of Haridwar. These students were on path of agitation as these colleges while advertising for the MD and MS courses in Ayurveda in the year 2016-17 had not mentioned about the fact that they are self financed courses. After admissions these students were asked to deposit higher fee of self financed courses and were not offered stipend.
This decision was resented by the students now the cabinet decision is expected to pave the way for payment of their stipend.