New Excise Policy will affect people of Jammu badly: DF&SS

The Government of Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir has notified the draft Excise Policy for the year 2021-22 to allot liquor vends for the financial year 2021-22 through e-auction in the same areas where liquor shops already exists.The workers of Dogra Front & Shiv Sena under the leadership of President Ashok Gupta took out a protest in Jammu City against the new excise policy which will hamper and affect the people of Jammu in a very bad manner.The policy, which was for the first time placed in the public domain before its issuance, envisages allotment of liquor shops to the residents of the Union Territory through e-auction. Any person who is eligible for grant of license as per the provisions of the excise act and rules will be eligible for participation in the e-auction process.Gupta stated that the new Governor is an Vikas Purush and has always promoted the growth of the people of Jammu & Kashmir.Gupta said that first of all why there are only 4 liquor shops in Kashmir as compared to the 224 liquor shops in Jammu division. The number of shops should be equivalent to Jammu in Kashmir valley as well.Demanding continuation of the existing policy, he said 30,000 families are directly or indirectly involved in earning their livelihood from this business and most of the present licensees are widows, senior citizens and unemployed youth who have no other source of income.The rich people can bid a huge amount of money, which is required to run this business as per new draft policy, thus snatching livelihood from small traders and creating a liquor mafia.He further stated that the new policy will only create liquor Mafia as the big liquor contractors have started hiring some people with domicile certificates as stooges/ faces and would be taking up maximum number of license of the shops which would lead to Mafia like the way it is in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab.The Jammu liquor shops pay an amount of Rs 1400 crores as Excise tax for an single financial year which is a highest contribution by single trade. If the government wants more revenue they should increase the fee of renewal of licenses which would serve the purpose for the government as well  as the current liquor vendors as they would not become unemployed.He further stated that the liquor vendors have contributed Rs 2,500 monthly towards Social Responsibility Corpus fund after submitting a proposal to the then J&K government in 2015-16 and recommended the transfer of an amount of Rs three crore to J&K relief fund from it in March last year after realising the gravity of coronavirus pandemic,’ he said, adding they have also donated 13 ambulances and relief items over the years.The party workers who were present at the time of protest were Bantu, Prem, Kalu, Sukhdev, Subhash, Rakesh, Sham, Vijay, Ramesh and various others were present.