AP Liquor Ban Will Increase Sales In Telangana

Hyderabad: The YSR Congress party's liquor ban has turned into a boon for the Telangana government as AP liquor contractors are now planning to set up outlets in Telangana state, especially in the border districts like Khammam, Nalgonda and Mahbubnagar.

As an outcome, the TRS government is mulling to increase the application fee for liquor shops.

AP has 4,000 liquor shops and the government intends to halve the number of liquor outlets and take over them. On the other hand, the Telangana state has about 2,240 liquor shops.

In AP, the liquor year starts from October and in Telangana from July and due to elections that AP government had extended the licence period by three months. Hence for both states, it starts from October now.

A leading daily pointed out that the TRS government had collected Rs 1 lakh as application fee for one liquor shop and that is non-refundable and the government collected approximately Rs 300 crore alone from application fee.

Meanwhile, as the AP liquor contractors are set to enter Telangana, the government is pondering over doubling the application fee to Rs two lakh, according to the daily.

The government expects that it will garner Rs 500 crore revenue from the application fee this time.

A liquor contractor can apply for any number of shops, but rule stipulates that each contractor applies for three or four shops. However, if any shop applies for more than one application, the selection is done via lottery.

The Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly on July 24 passed the Andhra Pradesh (Regulation of Trade in Indian Made Foreign Liquor, Foreign Liquor) Act, 1993 which enables the regulation of shop, bar and in-house licenses.

The Bill moved by Minister for Excise and Commercial Taxes K Narayana Swamy said that the legislation would eradicate violations in retailing of IMFL and enforcing strict regulations through exclusively retailing by public sector organisation.

Also Read: Telangana Liquor Sales Highest In Southern States, IMFL Demand Up 30%

Also Read: Law Enacted To Regulate Sale Of Liquor In Andhra Pradesh