Thaindian News

By Jaideep Sarin
Chandigarh, March 18 (IANS) This is one diktat that officials across Punjab will not say “cheers” to. They have been asked not to physically draw the lottery for allotment of nearly 7,000 liquor vends in the state.

In particular, officials from the excise and taxation department have been told by the state government not to take out the lottery scheduled for Friday to ensure that the process is “fair and transparent” - even though they may be present on the occasion.

“The process of taking out lotteries would be carried out in the presence of all the applicants, invitees from the press and others. They will take out the lotteries themselves and no departmental or any other government official will take out even a single lottery,” Excise and Taxation Commissioner A. Venu Prasad said.

The draw of lots will take place Friday at all district headquarters of the state’s 20 districts. Deputy commissioners of the districts concerned will be observers for conducting the draw of lots and the entire process of allotment will be video-graphed.

Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal has described the Rs.5 billion additional revenue to be generated from the allotment of liquor vends in the state for 2010-11 as a “historical one” compared to 2009-10.

“This is easily the highest increase ever made in the history of Punjab by the excise and taxation department,” Badal said.

The state government is targeting a revenue of Rs.25 billion from liquor sales in the next fiscal compared to nearly Rs.20 billion in the present year (2009-10).

For the 6,914 vends that will be up for grabs Friday, a large number of applicants will be in the fray. The state government has received over Rs.1.5 billion as application money from the applicants for the liquor vends.

The entire proceeds (over Rs.1.5 billion) from the sale of applications would go towards the welfare of the Scheduled Castes and also be used to meet the expenditure incurred on their pensions and the ‘Shagun’ scheme of the Punjab government, the chief minister has announced.

Financial Commissioner-Taxation Shivinder Singh Brar said: “The government adopted a more applicant-friendly excise policy this time, wherein the department waived off the five percent security deposit amount at the time of submission of the application form.”

Liquor will be costlier in Punjab this year - Rs.10 per bottle for Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) and Rs.6.25 per bottle in case of country liquor.

While the state government has not increased the quota for IMFL, the quota for country liquor has been increased by 15 percent after conducting a survey of liquor demand from each of the vends. The total number of liquor vends in the state will remain roughly the same as in the last one year.

(Jaideep Sarin can be contacted at jaideep.s@ians.in)