Age limit for liquor to be reduced to 21, govt vends to be privatised
New Delhi: The Delhi government is now set to roll out its new Excise Policy on April 1, with significant changes as suggested by the Excise Committee, including reducing the age limit of drinking from 25 to 21 and privatising all state-owned liquor vends across the city — with a key aim to improve the liquor shopping experience of residents in the Capital, senior officials of the Delhi government have confirmed to Millennium Post.
The Excise Committee formed under the leadership of Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, with ministers Kailash Gehlot and Satyendra Jain on board and several other officials, have concluded that the suggested changes will promote quality brands over cheap brands.
Following the recommendations made by the Excise Committee Report the Delhi Government has decided to launch the new policy as the existing excise policy had been flowing since 2004 with minor changes now and then, one official said.
The new excise policy aims to increase the Delhi government excise duty revenues by around Rs 2,500 crore from Rs 5,068.7 crore to an estimated Rs 7,651 crore per annum.
"With the new excise policy the government in all likelihood will do away with state liquor shops and transfer them to private stakeholders who provide better quality brands and services," a senior government official involved in drafting the new policy said, adding that this comes based on suggestions of the committee to improve the liquor-buying experience of people and promote a better quality of products.
"Retail government-owned shops promote cheaper quality alcohol while the private shops promote better brands. Also, a survey by the committee showed that people did not like queuing outside government alcohol shops and instead preferred private shops where they get to walk around and select their choice of liquor," another senior official aware of the developments told Millennium Post.
Another key suggestion of the committee that the Delhi government has warmed up to is reducing the drinking age limit to 21 from 25, the Delhi government has welcomed the idea and is even considering keeping pubs open till 3 am to boost sales. "There is a discrepancy in age limit when it comes to Delhi and its neighbour UP where the age limit is 21 thus in order to keep up, the Delhi Government is planning to reduce it," officials said.
"We want to give it a mall-like shopping experience with a plethora of options to choose from," one of the officials said, adding that there will not be a stark change in the tax rates on liquor. "We have to maintain the price range of liquor with our neighbouring states. If we hike it too much it will lead to bootlegging which the government does not want," one official said.
However, there will be some tweaking in the tax but nothing of significance, the officials insisted. "Liquor will continue to be sold at almost the same rate at which it is currently being sold," they added.
The committee had also suggested that liquor vends be allocated through a lottery system which may not be included in the new policy and proposed raising the licence fee from Rs 8 lakh per year to Rs 75 lakh per year — another suggestion the government has chosen not to consider.
In order to compensate the hike to the vend owner, the committee has also suggested that the owners should get a profit of eight percent from the MRP of the product which as of now was a profit of Rs 50 to Rs 100 per bottle. Through this method, the government and vend owner both will be able to profit. The
committee's report also suggests not to allow more than two vends per individual in order to break the existing monopoly.
The report has also suggested raising the number of existing 720 liquor vends to 916 and reducing the number of Dry Days from 21 to 3 but the state government will most likely not adopt this suggestion.
