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The Delhi government has recommended changes via its group of ministers for the capital for its new excise policy that was implemented in 2021. In a letter accessed by Mint for the year 2022-23, the ministry of finance of the city headed by the city’s minister of finance, Manish Sisodia said that independent restaurants in 5-star hotels will be able to get a new license of “L-16A" which will allow them to serve liquor for 24 hours within a hotel for a license fee of ₹25 lakhs per annum instead of the current ₹1 crore per annum fee.
There is a proposed change of excise duty reduction to ₹30 per bulk liter -- which is one liter or three pints -- in line with Chandigarh. It is currently ₹40 per bulk liter in Delhi. The proposal of changes adds that there has been no draught beer registered since November 2021 in the city and the department will need to come out with a mechanism for reinstating the supplies which Delhi has had for years.
It adds that brand registration fee for non-whisky should be dropped to ₹5,000 per brand - this will ensure a larger, specially international range to the guests in restaurants. This is being proposed to be reduced from ₹1 lakh for label registration and ₹5,000 for brand registration to ₹5,000 only.
The objective, they said, in the document was to secure more excise revenue for the government, which will improve customer experience as well as prevent revenue leakage in the system both in retail outlets and hotels, clubs and restaurants.
While the new excise policy for the state came into effect on March 31, 2021, the note said that it has encountered various challenges during the implementation. For this, the zonal retail licensees had approached the Delhi High Court seeking a relief for various issues including the payment of license fee. A total of 124 cases were filed for this in both the High Court and other subordinate courts.
As per the new excise policy, around 850 liquor vends, including the 260 outlets run privately, have now been tendered out to private firms to run. Following this order in October last year, about 40% of all private liquor vends in Delhi shut down and the remaining ones operated by the government also shut down on November 17. This had briefly crippled sales for the entire festive season. Following this, the new excise policy for the city then came into effect mid-November under which larger, better stores have been opened.