Delhi to go back to its old liquor policy from Aug 1

The new policy was to curb sale of illegal or spurious liquor, claims Manish Sisodia as party withdraws excise policy

The Aam Aadmi Party-led Delhi government has decided to withdraw its new excise policy and directed that liquor be sold only through government-run shops from August 1, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said on Saturday.

The excise policy was passed in Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal-led Cabinet in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2021. At a press conference, Sisodia claimed that before 2021, there was a lot of corruption in the sale of liquor, and that his government brought in the new excise policy to curb graft.

“Earlier, there used to be some private shops but they would be allotted to near and dear ones. We ended this system and carried out a transparent auction,” he said, adding, “The government used to earn a revenue of Rs 6,000 crore every year but under the new policy, the revenue would have risen to Rs 9,500 crore.”

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Sisodia, who is under fire from the BJP over allegations of irregularities in the excise policy implementation, however, claimed that central agencies were used to threaten liquor shopkeepers with ED and CBI, leading to many  leaving the business. Today there are only 468 functional shops, he said.

“Many more plan to leave the shops. They want to create a liquor shortage in Delhi and want to encourage illegal and spurious liquor trade,” he said. Sisodia also claimed that even Delhi government officials are scared with ED and CBI action.

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