Liquor ban: States ask Centre to de-notify national highways

The Supreme Court on Friday said hotels and restaurants falling within 500 metres on either side of the national and state highways cannot serve liquor.

After Supreme Court's ban on Liquor shops along the highways, the state government is mulling the denotifying of even existing highways. The bar owners, wine merchants in the states have decided to demand denotification of highways as Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Chandigarh did, hoping to reduce the impact.

According to the owners, 90 per cent of the shops are on these roads and the government would lose significant amount of tax, besides lakh of people losing their source of income.

As per the latest reports, Maharashtra is adversely affected with this liquor ban. The state would be losing yearly revenue of Rs 7,000 crore. According to Excise Minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule, a total of 25,513 liquor licenses in the state, licenses of 15,699 outlets which are along the highways will be affected. He further said in Delhi, 100 authorised liquor vends, restaurants and hotel bars had been shut down by Saturday morning.

Here are the estimated loss of each states with the Supreme Court order on liquor vends along state and national highways to shut down:

Karnataka
Out of the 10,149 liquor licences issued by the Karnataka Excise Department for liquor stores, bars and hotels, as many as 5,950 licences are with the outlets located within 500 metres of highways - 2,510 wine shops, 1,599 bars, 219 star hotels and 173 clubs.

Jharkhand
Excise Secretary Avinash Kumar said that out of the total 1,432 liquor shops, the state Excise Department has identified at least 670 shops that fall within 500 metres of the highways.

Haryana
According to the Haryana Additional Chief Secretary Sanjeev Kaushal said that 194 bars won't be allowed to serve liquor from now on. He further said that the Haryana government is likely to lose annual revenue of Rs 100 crore as the state has to close 40 per cent of the total 478 bars located in hotels and restaurants in the state.

Punjab
Punjab Excise department has suspended the licences of about 2500 liquor outlets across the state.

West Bengal
West Bengal has about 1,800 off-shops within 500 metres of highways, generating a total of over Rs 1,000 crore in revenue for the state.

Maharashtra
Nearly 15,699 liqour outlets shut down in Maharashtra.

Kerala
Around 1,700 liquor vends were forced to shut down in Kerala.

Gujarat
The dry state which is reported to have around 56 licensed liquor shops, of which 12 are on highways has been instructed to 'temporarily' be shut.