By Arun Pratap Singh
Dehradun, 11 Oct: After being slammed by the Opposition as well as people within the ruling party over its new excise policy that was promulgated to allow the citizens of the state to have their own personal bars to store and consume liquor at home, the state government has decided to defer its implementation. It is not clear as yet whether the decision has been deferred or permanently withdrawn due to sharp criticism, but the government has decided not to go ahead with the implementation of the new policy for the time being.
Orders deferring the implementation of the new policy have been issued by Excise Commissioner Hari Chandra Semwal. Sources said that the instruction to withdraw the new excise policy had been issued in the wake of the controversy by Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami.
It may be recalled that the Uttarakhand government had only recently introduced a new provision in its excise policy for the fiscal year 2023-24, allowing individuals to obtain licences to keep mini-bars at home but with certain caveats. One of the interesting restriction was that the new policy barred the owners from using the home mini-bar on dry days and also barred the entry of minors in the personal mini bars. The annual licence fee for the personal mini bars had been fixed at Rs 12,000 per annum. Only those people were eligible to apply who had been filing their Income Tax Returns for past 5 years. Under this provision, the bar owners were allowed to keep 9 litres of Indian made foreign liquor, 18 litres of foreign liquor (imported), 9 litres of wine and 15.6 litres of beer. Sources also claimed that the policy now stands withdrawn due to various impractical provisions in the policy. It may be recalled that Congress and other political parties and several social organisations had strongly criticised the government for this provision.
