Licence to drink is cheaper now

♦ Now, pay only Rs 4,000 for Health permit

Getting health permit for liquor consumption in Ahmedabad has become cheaper by Rs 10,000. With the clearance now given by Sola Civil Hospital, applicants no longer have to shell out Rs 10,000 that they had to mandatorily donate for patient care at Asarwa Civil Hospital, which earlier gave the green signal for issuance of the permits. From the first batch of applicants to be examined after the shift, 41 have been cleared to receive the permit at the lowered cost.

Till last year, those seeking a permit were sent to Asarwa Civil for health check-up to ascertain if they should be issued the licence to drink. They had to first apply to the prohibition and excise department, which after primary scrutiny, would send them to the Area Medical Board (AMB) for health check-up. Doctors would then conduct an examination based on which they would give the clearance for the permit. Once the application was approved, the applicant had to donate Rs 10,000 to the Rogi Kalyan Samiti which is a part of the hospital and provides help to poor patients.

In September last year, while announcing amendments to the existing Prohibition rules, the state government also shifted the charge of scrutinising applications for health liquor permits to Sola Civil Hospital from Asarwa Civil. On December 3, the prohibition department sent the first batch of 100 applications to the Sola Civil Hospital. Of these 41 were cleared by the AMB.

Confirming the development, superintendent of Sola Civil Dr Ajesh Desai said, "We do not have any extra charges. The AMB is functional now. We have continued with check-ups on Tuesday and Thursday, which were the designated days at Asarwa Civil."

Earlier, there were 26 AMBs across the state. Now, there are only six, which are located in Ahmedabad, Gandhinagar, Rajkot, Bhavnagar, Vadodara and Surat.

Consumers raise a toast

Requesting anonymity, an applicant who recently received the permit said, "We did not know that they used to charge additional Rs 10,000. I was not asked to pay this amount when I got the permit."

Another applicant said, "I had inquired about the procedure to get the permit earlier. That was when I got to know that one had to pay Rs 10,000 to the Rogi Kalyan Trust. Recently, my health check-up was conducted at Sola Civil. I was not asked for any additional amount. I thought I might have to pay later at the time of getting the permit. I was pleasantly surprised when I got to know that I did not have to pay any extra amount."

A permit holder for the past six years said, "Donation should be voluntary, not compulsory. Initially, they used to take Rs 5,000 as donation, but raised it to Rs 10,000. The permit has to be renewed every two years. And every time, one had to pay Rs 10,000. It is good news that the compulsory donation has been discontinued."

However, another permit holder added, "While it is good that this mandatory donation has been discontinued, that money was for a good purpose. I hope people now spend it on an equally worthy cause."

The math of money

Earlier, those seeking a liquor permit from Ahmedabad had to pay Rs 1,000 as permit process fee and Rs 500 as health checkup fee. Additionally, they had to give donation of Rs 10,000 to the Rogi Kalyan (Patient Care) Samiti. In September last year, the fee for both was hiked to Rs 2,000 each. This meant, an applicant had to pay Rs 14,000 to get a liquor permit. Now, one can get a permit for Rs 4,000.