UP hit hard during loan waiver time

 The Supreme Court’s order on liquor ban is likely to result in a huge loss of revenue to the Uttar Pradesh government, which is desperately looking for funds to fulfil its promise of waiver of crop loans of small and marginal farmers.

 According to the excise department officials, of 27,000 licensed shops in the state, a little over 7,000, including bars, were found to be under the purview of the court’s order and had to be closed.

 Although the officials were unable to provide a definite figure, when asked about the loss of revenue, they did admit that the loss could be more than Rs 6,000 crore.
“We are still calculating the loss of revenue. It may be around Rs 6,000 crore or even more,” a senior excise official told DH on Thursday.

 However, the liquor traders, claimed that the revenue loss would be more than Rs 8,000 crore.

“The ban will not only hit the revenue, but also employment. Thousands of people will lose jobs,”  said K L Maurya, general secretary, The Liquor Traders’ Association.

 Maurya said hundreds of liquor shop owners had surrendered their licences after the ban as they did not find a suitable place to shift their shops to run their business. 

 Shifting of the liquor shops into residential areas have angered people and there have been reports of mobs attacking the liquor vends in different parts of the state.

 In a bid to save some of the vends from falling under the SC order, the state government has denotified many of its state highways and made them district roads.
 According to the officials, many of the roads, which were earlier part of the state highways and connected the bypasses, were denotified and converted into district roads to bypass the ban.

Sources said over 1,000 liquor vends would be saved by such denotification.  
The liquor traders’ associations have been pressing the government to denotify more state highways.