Won’t ban liquor in city: Sisodia
NEW DELHI: Deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia on Tuesday tabled details of liquor shops and said the government had no plan to ban alcohol in Delhi.
The minister’s remarks in the assembly came amid a controversy over an increase in liquor shops in the Capital.
Sisodia said that in many areas, liquor vends had been closed after complaints from the public. The Delhi government has decided to empower Mohalla Sabhas to take a call on liquor shops in neighbourhoods.
In reply to a question by AAP’s Timarpur MLA Pankaj Pushkar, the deputy CM said, “There is an attempt to create an environment that we are the liquor mafia. We ended corruption in distribution of licence for liquor vends and that is why we are being targeted. We have shifted the liquor shops to malls as they have an arrangement to deal with anti-social elements.”
Sisodia said they didn’t want to run the government through money collected from liquor sale.
“Delhi will become the first place where locals will decide the location of liquor vends. We have ended the inspector raj and corruption in the excise department. Now, an officer’s job is to stop corruption and not to think about liquor vends. Earlier, politicians or relatives used to own liquor shops, now in our government, no MLA supports opening of (liquor) vends in their area,” Sisodia said.
The government had recently notified 2,972 mohalla sabhas where registered voters will be able to take a call through voting on basic or urgent development works and monitor progress. There are over 460 liquor shops in residential neighbourhoods.
The development comes amid a campaign by the Swaraj Abhiyan led by Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan against ‘proliferation’ of liquor vends. Quoting an RTI reply from the excise department, the group had claimed that 58 liquor vends had come up in the city since last February.
The government had, however, clarified that only six of the new shops were opened in residential areas while the rest were in malls.
Leader of Opposition Vijender Gupta said the government was trying to mislead people by giving wrong figures and the truth is that the number of liquor vends had increased by 200%.
The licensing process for liquor shops is divided into three categories — L6 (government shops), L7 (private shops) and L10 (shops in malls).
“No new liquor shop in L6 and L7 category will be opened this year,” Sisodia said.