Yogi govt announces new excise policy, reduces liquor shops timings by 2 hours

Tipplers in Uttar Pradesh will now have reduced ‘booze hours’ to buy their favourite liquor brands as the Yogi Adityanath government has reduced the timings for opening and closing of liquor shops by one hour each, bringing it down from current 12 hours to 10 hours only.

Announcing its new excise policy for 2018-19, the BJP government today notified a new schedule for opening and closing liquor shops across the state. Shops will now open at 12 in the noon instead of 11 am and close sharp at 10 pm instead of earlier designated time of 11 pm. The new schedule for opening and closing of liquor shops will be effective from April 1, 2018.

“The new excise policy is aimed at ending monopoly, crony capitalism, rampant smuggling and corruption in the liquor trade and introducing free fair bidding and transparency,” said Dr Siddharth Nath Singh, the BJP government Spokesperson after the Cabinet meeting.

In its new excise policy, which was approved by the Cabinet on Wednesday, the state government has given a major blow to the monopoly of enjoyed by a few companies. 

The new excise policy has ended the old Hologram regime and introduced a much trusted way of levying excise duty through ‘track and trace system’ for real time tracking of bottles. It was a common practice among liquor barons in Uttar Pradesh to smuggle liquor into the state by faking Holograms resulting in huge excise revenue losses to state exchequer.

The new policy has dismantled special Meerut zone, comprising districts of Saharanpur, Meerut, Moradabad and Bareilly, created during Mayawati regime. It has introduced online bidding process hrough e-Lottery to put an end to monopoly. An individual or company would now be awarded a maximum of only two shops in a district through online bidding.

To promote digital transactions, about 18,000 retail liquor outlets will provide facilities for making payments through debit/credit cards, e-wallet etc. The new policy restricts opening of retail outlets near schools/educational institutions/ religious places and hospitals.

New excise policy has also offered incentives to retailers. Those exceeding their minimum guarantee quota by 6% of country liquor, 40% of Indian made foreign liquor and 30% of beer during 2018-19 will be given preference in renewal of their licenses in 2019-20 bidding.

“The measures envisaged into the new excise policy will increase the excise revenue by 30 per cent or fetch Rs 4673 crore extra to the state exchequer during 2018-19,” Singh claimed.