Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta tabled the CAG report on excise policy for the year 2021-2022, one of the 14 reports on the previous Aam Aadmi Party regime’s performance. As per the report, Delhi’s exchequer suffered a cumulative loss of Rs 2,000 crore due to the flawed liquor policy.
The AAP government allegedly withheld the tabling of 14 CAG reports until its tenure came to an end. The tabling of CAG reports was one of the key poll promises of the BJP in Delhi. The alleged irregularities in the liquor policy led to the arrest of former chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, deputy CM Manish Sisodia, BRS leader K. Kavitha and several other prominent persons. The accused including Kejriwal were granted bail in the cases being probed by the CBI and ED in connection with the scam.
As per the report, Delhi suffered a loss of revenue to the tune of Rs 941.53 crore as timely permissions were not taken for opening the liquor vends in non-conforming municipal wards. Non-conforming areas are areas which do not conform to land use norms for opening of liquor vends, PTI reported.
The report found excise department suffered loss of approximately Rs 890.15 crore in excise license fees owing to its surrender in non-conforming areas and the department’s failure to re-tender them. The state government also lost revenue to the tune of Rs 144 crore due to waiver grant by the government to licensees considering the Covid pandemic.
The report noted while Master Plan Delhi-2021 prohibited the opening of liquor vends in non-conforming areas, the excise policy mandated the opening of at least two outlets in each ward. “The excise department did not take timely action to work out modalities for proposed vends in non-conforming areas and the initial tender was floated on June 28, 2021, without taking comments from the DDA and MCD,” the report said.
The CAG report found opening of outlets without sorting out issues regarding opening vends in non-conforming areas led to cumulative loss of Rs 941.53 crore. “19 zonal licensees had surrendered their licences before the policy expired in August 2022 – four in March 2022, five in May 2022 and 10 in July 2022. However, no re-tendering process was initiated by the excise department to operationalise the retail vends in these zones,” it said.
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The report said while excise and finance departments opposed granting a waiver in license fee to licensees owing to the Covid lockdown, then excise minister Manish Sisodia granted the waiver and “it resulted into the loss of approximately pro-rata Rs 144 crore to the government”.
The report added the then government went against the recommendations of the expert committee formed to formulate the policy and adopted one-time bidding instead of lottery system to allocate vends. CAG said, “Certain decisions with revenue implications were taken without having the approval of the Cabinet and the opinion of the lieutenant governor”. CAG said, “Due to a number of issues ranging from weak policy framework to deficient implementation of the policy, there was a cumulative loss of approximately Rs 2,002.68 crores."