CONTROVERSIAL DELHI LIQUOR POLICY

 

After implementation of the new liquor policy on Nov 17, 2021, the Delhi Government shut all government run vends and handed them over to private vendors.

The government said the new policy would eliminate liquor mafia, increase revenue for the government and enhance consumer experience.

When the old Policy was scrapped, the Delhi Government set a goal of about Rs 9500 crore a year on liquor license fees by allowing private companies to open 850 shops in 32 zones.

The Chief Secretary of Delhi released a report on July 8 on the liquor policy alleged financial irregularities. After this report was released and created a storm the AAP government cancelled the new liquor policy.

Now, what are the figures that accrued out of the enw policy and what is the comparison?

A state cabinet note said on Aug 2 that Rs 6720 crores came from VAT & license fee in 2021-22. The policy was implemented on Nov 17 last year but the note does not say what are the revenue accruals between Nov17 2021, and March 31 2022. So, there is no way of knowing how much revenue accrual was there for 2021-22 after the policy was implemented.

In 2020-21 the state revenue was Rs 7039 crores. In the first quarter of the financial year 22-23 i.e. for the 3 months between April 1^st and June 30^th (under the new policy) the revenue fell short of the budgeted estimates by 38% . And during this time the liquor sale has actually gone up by 59.46%.

As per the revenue accrued for 2020-21 (last FY) the quarterly revenue should have been at least  Rs 1760 crores. But the actual accrual was Rs 1485 crore. This is shortfall of Rs 275 crores in a single quarter compared to last year.

This drop was admitted by the Delhi government itself. The irony is this Rs 1485 crores also includes the refundable liquor deposit of Rs 980 crores by the vendors. So, the actual revenue for the Apr-Jun quarter was just Rs 505 crores ( Rs1485 crores- Rs 980 crores)

Delhi government claims that court relief to several liquor vends in license fees and also prohibition on opening shops in non-conforming areas by civic bodies led to this drop.  

But whatever the government may say, people do not stop taking liquor if it is available and the government cannot offer any explanation as to why the liquor revenues had gone down that drastically when its sale has actually gone up by 60%. The cost of liquor had not been brought down in Delhi after the new policy, and that actually means the benefit the state has lost has actually gone to the vendors. If this is not a scam, then none is. 

 

In its FIR filed on August 17 it accused Sameer Mahendru, the MD of Indospirit group of transferring Rs 1 crore into the bank account of Radha Industries owned by Dinesh Arora. Arora is a partner in 13 hospitality and entertainment companies.

The FIR also says that a person named Arjun Pandey has once collected a cash amount of Rs 2-4 crores from Sameer Mahendru on behalf of Vijay Nair.

Vijay Nair is associated with the AAP’s poll campaign and social media strategies and is the founder of Only Much Louder an event management company.

BJP claims Arjun Pandey is the CEO of the India Ahead News channel which was founded by Bhupendra Choubey. Choubey is married to AAP MLA Atishi’s sister.

Now look at that; Kakinada has a connection with this. The India Ahead News channel belongs to Andhra Prabha whose MD is none other than Mutha Gopalakrishna.

Rs 30 crores:

Puducherry based Pixie Enterprises (P) Ltd. won the license rights for 10 shops in the airport zone for Rs 240 crores. The airport authorities had a running agreement with Buddy Retail Pvt. Ltd owned by Amit Arora and Bhaskar Venisetty and therefore refused NOC to Pixie Enterprises.

The government later returned a deposit of Rs 30 crores to Pixie Enterprises which allegedly violated the excise rules. Sisodia said Buddy was granted the license after it matched Pixie’s offer.

A letter from the Chief Secretary of Delhi Naresh Kumar dated 06^th August and a report by the Directorate of intelligence, said the return violated the excise rules.

The Vigilance report said that excise officials on July 8 last year quoted an incorrect subs section from the rules to return the deposit. The relevant sub section mandates that if successful bidders fail to get approvals from the authorities, their deposit would be forfeited.

Rs 144 crores

The Delhi government imposed severe restrictions in December and January on account of Omicron. As the liquors ale dropped the vendors approached the government for license fee waiver. The government waived 24% of the license fee from Dec 28 to January 27. This resulted in a loss of Rs 144.36 crores to the Government.  

The accounts department pointed out that waiver cannot be more than the drop of sale which is 21.60% but the government did not pay heed.

And what was the defence of Excise officials to this? They say as a responsible government Delhi government provided a series of direct and indirect relief to the society of which this is one.

Rs 8000-10000 crore

This is merely a hocus pocus allegation by the BJP. But the Delhi government itself conceded that the revenue loss on account of the new policy for the first quarter of this year (Apr-Jun 22) is 37.51% and that is a huge loss to the state alright. Obviously the rates have been tampered in such a way to benefit the vendors in the new policy.

In January 2022, the government reduced the dry days from 23 last year to just 3 this year. The government also removed a levy of Rs 50 per case on beer.