The Jharkhand Wine Dealers Welfare Association has opposed the new excise policy which is going to be introduced from April this year. The state government witnessing a dip in revenue collection has decided to hand over liquor trade to private retail after running it from their own resources for nearly 22 months. The State excise department has prepared the new policy, but the traders have opposed it saying that it is very short-sighted one which will be prove detrimental in long run. The traders claim that much of the provisions of new excise policy are unclear.
Anup Chawla, president of Jharkhand Wine Dealers Welfare Association said, “We have requested the government to change some of stringent provisions of new excise policy.” According to Chawla, the biggest lacuna of new excise policy is about license fees and renewal policy.
Chawla said, “As per new policy, liquor traders will be given the license for a period of three years, but as per new policy traders will have to renew their license. However, it has not been mentioned about the new license fees the traders will have to incur after renewal.”
Echoing the views of Chawla, Hima Shaw, member of Jharkhand Wine Dealers Welfare Association said, “As per the new liquor policy, traders will get the license for a period of three years, but if a trader incur losses or due to some unavoidable reasons is unable to run his or her outlet, then also the trader will have to pay the license fees for remaining two years. Shaw said, “The new provisions are stringent as it will break the bone of businessmen engaged in liquor trade.” The association claimed that the government has pegged the target of revenue collection of Rs 1,558.38 crore from private players.
The association member claimed that when the government took the sale of liquor in their hand they had pegged a target of revenue collection of Rs 1,400 crore from government run liquor outlets, but there was revenue collection of only Rs 848 crore.
Also the government ran 660 liquor shops compared to 1,432 retail licensed shops earlier.