Liquor shops reopen across state under new govt policy

Ranchi: The Jharkhand government is all set to implement the new liquor policy in the state under which it will take over the wholesale and retail liquor sales. The move is aimed at raising the state’s revenue but the liquor traders alleged that the government is only going to contribute to unemployment among the youths engaged in this sector as the external outsourcing agency is going to appoint its own people.
Talking to TOI, state excise commissioner Amit Kumar said with the government taking over the operation of liquor warehouses and deployment of store operators and helpers will eliminate all kinds of malpractices done by the distributors and the private shop owners.
He negated the claims that there will be job losses and said, “Many of the liquor traders are saying that there will be jobs losses under the new policy, but that will not be true. We have empanelled an agency which will be selecting ‘dukan prabhari’ and ‘dukan sahayaks’ based on the data provided by respective district employment exchange,” Kumar said.
Kumar further said, “There were over 1,600 sanctioned shops of which only 1,446 were operational till March 2022 which became a reason for revenue loss. Under the new policy, we have a sanctioned strength of 1,564 shops in the current financial year out and 1,420 will be operational from May 2. The rest will be operated gradually.”
On the revenue targets, Kumar said the government is eyeing Rs 2,300 crores annually but it might increase or decrease seasonally. “ Even if we suffer a shortfall of 25% in a specific month, we will be recovering it from the bank guarantee provided by the operators selected by the government to run the liquor stores,” he said.