Haryana pushes up booze price, brings tetra packs, curbs

CHANDIGARH: Haryana government's new excise policy unveiled on Tuesday cleared 5-15% hike in liquor rates. On the lines of neighbouring Punjab, the state government also decided to deploy 350 cops exclusively to stop manufacture and supply of illegal sale of liquor.

For the first time, the state has introduced Indian Made Foreign Liquor in tetra packs (biodegradable) of 180 ml, technically called Nips.


The 2019-20 excise policy targets mobilisation of Rs 7,500 crore, indicating a year-on-year growth of 19 % from this year's Rs 6,300 crore.
Explaining the policy, Sanjeev Kaushal, additional chief secretary (excise and taxation), told TOI that rates of a bottle of country liquor is expected to increase from Rs 140 to Rs 145 and those of beer likely to see a rise of 5-10% .

Excise policy allows launch of superior country liquor

Rates of IMFL are determined by the companies after considering several factors, including inflation, excise duty/VAT etc, and as per the estimates, it may increase from 5-15% depending on the quality/brands of IMFL. Still our rates would be lower than our neighbors ---Delhi and Punjab,” Kaushal added.

The policy also rationalised excise duty on IMFL, country liquor and beer to maximise revenue and to simultaneously promote the industry as a whole. To cater to the growing demand, the annual mandatory lifting quota for country liquor and IMFL was marginally raised from 10 crore proof litre to 10.5 crore proof litre and from 6 crore proof litre to 6.5 crore proof litre, respectively.

To provide quality country liquor to consumers at lower rates, the policy allows the launch of superior 65-degree proof country liquor to be distilled and marketed by the state based distilleries.

For quicker clearances and decision-making in the department, district-level officers have been delegated the authority of collector excise to a large extent. The size of retail zones have largely been retained with six vends located in each geographical position. To facilitate potential licensees who want to bid higher than 25 % above reserve price of a zone, the earnest money deposit has been rationalized to 15% instead of 21%.