The Delhi government on Friday issued a notification asking the permit holders to renew their existing excise permits by October 5.
The city government has decided to extend the existing excise policy by six months due to the time required to come up with a new trade regime for liquor.
The policy has been extended till March 31, 2024 after requisite approvals from the Delhi government and the Lieutenant Governor, a senior officer had said on Thursday.
“All licensees of L15/L-15F and L-16/L-16F are hereby requested to submit their applications for renewal of the licenses online by accessing their accounts in the ESCIMS portal through their ID and passwords, together with the applicable license renewal fee for the period from 01.10.2023 to 31.03.2024 by providing the required information and paying the renewal license fee on or before 05.10.2023,” the notice said.
A proposal by the excise department to extend the policy, which was implemented on September 1 last year, was submitted to the LG for approval after it was approved by the government. The file was sent back to the government from the LG’s office, marked as “seen”, the officer had said.
The current excise policy would expire on September 30, necessitating its extension or replacement with a new policy for regulatory requirements to operate retail and wholesale liquor businesses in the national capital.
The current policy was intended as a stopgap measure to avoid a regulatory vacuum due to the sudden scrapping of the new excise policy for 2021-2022 by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government, after LG VK Saxena faced a CBI probe recommended for alleged irregularities in its implementation.
The new policy (2021-2022), aimed at reforming the liquor trade in Delhi, was implemented on November 17, 2021 and ended on August 31, 2022. Under this policy, the Delhi government stopped selling liquor, allowing private parties to operate liquor stores in the city under a liberal excise tax regime.
The current excise policy was earlier extended by the government for six months after March 31.
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