On Saturday, the Chief Minister of Jharkhand decided to hand over the liquor sales license to a private group. This decision was made by the government led government in response to the decreasing race revenues and Chief Minister Raghubar Das had decided to amend this in hopes of increasing the state’s revenue generation.
Jharkhand’s government took over the retail liquor trade in 2017 and banned all private parties from selling any alcohol based products. This decision was made as it was calculated that it would boost the state’s revenue collection if Jharkhand’s government had control over the liquor market.
The government planned to over 1664 liquor shop. It was decided that out of all the shops 718 would sell Indian made foreign liquor, 565 would sell Indian made liquor and the rest would be composite shops. But this decision backfired as the government failed to meet its goal in the year 2017-2018.
During the briefing, an Excise Department official told IANS, “The application for shop allocations to private parties through lottery has been started from Saturday. The application will be invited till March 4 and from March 5 lottery will start.”
The Jharkhand government generated Rs 846 crore as revenue during 2017-18 which is less than that of the year 2016-2017 as it had generated revenue of Rs 957 crore. And therefore the Jharkhand Government had decided to revert back its decision in hopes of increasing its annual revenue.