Indore: Excise Officials, Contractors In A Fix Over Liquor Protest

Indore: Excise department and contractors are i -a fix due to protest over shifting, opening of liquor shops at new locations after senior leaders of the major political parties – BJP and Congress now extended their support to the agitating people.

It would probably be for the first time that senior excise officials and the collector had to hold discussions with the contractors to ‘persuade’ them to participate in the process of allocating liquor shops for 2022-23 as most of them were relucent due to increasing the annual license fees, merging all the Indian made foreign liquor and country made liquor shops and reducing the liquor prices by around 15% on MSP as major changes in the new liquor policy expected to cause them loss in the business.

“Besides, increasing political pressure for liquor-ban had also put us in dilemma and was one of the reasons behind contractors showing less interest in participating in the auction process” a contractor said, while wishing anonymity, adding that believing on assurances of the administration of providing safety and helping in finding a suitable place in case of shifting the liquor shops, some contractors however took ‘risk’ as they have to face people’s outrage on at least half-a-dozen places including Palda, Scheme-140, Scheme-114, Reti Mandi Road in Rajendra Nagar and Agra village of Depalpur tehsil.

Meanwhile, BJP MLA Mahendra Hardia and Congress MLA Jitu Patwari extended their support to ongoing protest of locals and their demand to shift liquor shops respectively from World Cup Square and Scheme-140 that increased problems for the contractors as well as for the excise officials.

“The protest over shifting of liquor shops at Scheme-114 square and Agra village has been pacified with talks between the contractors and the agitators while the contractor has dropped his proposal to shift his liquor shop at the new location on Reti Mandi road” assistant excise commissioner Raj Narayan Soni said, adding that a liquor shop has been shifted elsewhere from World Cup Square.

There is some resentment over shifting of liquor shops in Scheme-140, which the department is examining and exploring all possible solutions to the issue, he said. TNN