Liquor vends auction to yield Rs 1728 crore in Punjab

Chandigarh, Mar 18 (UNI) The Punjab Excise and Taxation Department expectes to earn a revenue of Rs 1728 crore through the allotment of liquor vends in the state for the year 2008-09.

An official spokesman here today said the government has alloted all the 6902 liquor vends in a free, fair and transparent manner.

He said the department had received 1974 applications for the allotment of vends and it earned Rs 38.25 crore by way of application fee.

The applicants were asked to deposit five per cent of the licence fee as security along with the application forms which were verified by the Assistant Excise and Taxation Commissioners of the concerned districts. As per the official spokesman of the department, no application without proper security was accepted.

The Deputy Commissioners of the districts supervised the draw-of-lots procedure as observers from the government side. There was a tremendous response for the liquor vends in the rural areas of the state with an average of 20-30 applications received for each liquor vend.

UNI HS VN AK RN2013