A few hours after the Supreme Court issued a clarification to the effect of its earlier highway liquor ban not applicable to the licensed bars and beverages outlets located within municipal area boundaries, the State Excise Minister Prakash Pant convened a meeting with the excise department officials on Thursday.
He asked them to make sure that the order is used to its fullest potential for the purpose of generating revenue for the department and also to see that unauthorised booze trade is effectively stopped through employing the latest technology. He also asked them to study the latest apex court order carefully and to take opinion from the legal department to make things foolproof to avoid legal hassles in future.
Pant asked the officials to install CCTV cameras and to arrange advanced bar code and holograms to track the supply to stop the consumers from buying illegally traded liquor which might prove hazardous to their health. At the same time, he stressed on the cashless system be promoted in the liquor shops through wide use of the swap machines. Furthermore, he asked the directorate to call a meeting of the District Excise Officers on August 28. Thursday’s meeting was attended among others by the Additional Chief Secretary Ranbir Singh, excise commission Yugal Kishore Pant and Additional Commissioner Archana Gaharwar.
Notably, the earlier apex court-imposed blanket ban on sale and consumption of liquor from the outer edges of the national and State highways had landed the Trivendra Singh Rawat Government in trouble soon after it had assumed charge in March this year. Importantly, the state earns revenue worth over Rs 2000 crore per annum through the excise sale. Placed in a tight situation, post the order, the State Government had found a way-out to somehow circumvent the ban by converting a few state highways into other district roads (ODR). It had spared many booze traders from the trouble of shifting to places outside the banned territory.