The Punjab Cabinet on Thursday approved the Excise Policy for the year 2022-23, for a period from 1 April to 30 June.
A decision to this effect was taken in the Cabinet meeting chaired by the Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann here at Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) this evening.
According to a spokesperson of the CMO, the policy has been allowed renewal for a period of three months to those existing licensees who will give 1.75 per cent excess revenue over Minimum Guaranteed Revenue (MGR) of Financial Year 2021-22 for their respective zone in order to maintain stability in the liquor trade. The number of zones and the number of liquor vends will, however, remain the same.
Pointing out further, the spokesperson said the MGR of zones of the state would be Rs 1440.96 Crore for a period of three months. However, the revenue target of this short term Excise Policy is kept at Rs 1910 Crore for three months’ period.
In order to generate more revenue, the Minimum Guaranteed Quota (MGQ) of Punjab Medium Liquor (PML), Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL), Beer and Imported Foreign Liquor (IFL)of each zone has been increased by 10 per cent over the minimum guaranteed quota of corresponding first quarter of last Financial Year of the respective zone.
Further, to allow retail licensees to lift liquor as per their requirement, the amount of additional fixed license fee has been increased, said the spokesperson.
The ratio of Fixed and Open quota of PML would be 30:70 as was prevalent during Financial Year 2021-22. In order to control the production and movement of liquor, an IT based Track and Trace System would be implemented during the Financial Year 2022-23, added the spokesperson.