Jammu: The Jammu and Kashmir administration has approved rolling out of J&K Excise Policy for the year 2024-25, an official spokesperson informed Friday.
He said under the chairmanship of the Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha, the Administrative Council comprising Rajeev Rai Bhatnagar, Advisor to the LG; Atal Dulloo, Chief Secretary; and Mandeep Kumar Bhandari, Principal Secretary to LG gave nod to the policy.
The policy highlights various fees/duties to be implemented in the manufacturing, transport, import and export of liquor and checking of the smuggling of narcotic drugs to UT of J&K from neighbouring States/Union Territories. The allotment of vends shall be made by auction and registration fee of Rs 50,000 shall be paid by bidders online through portal, the press release said.
It said the successful bidder will be required to deposit 100 percent of the bid amount through eGRAS/Easy Collect portal within seven banking days from the date of finalization of the bid. The vends not allotted for reasons like social pressure, court orders or non availability of premises or where no bids have been received shall be put to re-auction.
New initiative of linkage of minimum reserve bid price with sale potential of each vend has been approved. Lower cap of 15 percent of MSP of liquor for on premises consumption has been fixed. As notified in Excise Policy for the year 2023-24, Excise Duty on CSD/ PAMF shall continue to be 25 percent less than that on civil for all types of liquor manufactured in the UT of J&K and the import duty shall continue to be 15 percent less than that on civil for all brands of liquor. Existing licensees having License of Beer Bar with Microbrewery License shall be given License within the same premises on remittance of requisite license fee and other duties.
There will be complete digitalization in liquor manufacturing, distribution and sale from production till retail consumption. For obtaining property certificate/ solvency certificate, the vendor must apply within 10 days of issuance of license before the concerned Revenue Authority who shall issue a certificate within a period of one month from the date of receipt of application and in case of non-disposal of application, the certificate as claimed by the applicant shall be deemed to have been issued by the competent authority.
Any licensee selling liquor above MRP shall be imposed a fine of Rs 40,000 for the first offence and Rs 75,000 for the second offence.
