CAG report flags Rs 2,000 crore loss to Delhi govt due to 2021-22 liquor policy | Delhi News

The now-scrapped 2021-22 excise policy in Delhi induced losses exceeding Rs 2,000 crore due to a weak policy framework and poor implementation, as per a CAG report.

NEW DELHI: The Delhi authorities suffered cumulative losses exceeding Rs 2,000 crore due to the now-scrapped 2021-22 excise policy, largely due to a weak policy framework and poor implementation, in accordance to a Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report tabled within the meeting on Tuesday.
The report, considered one of 14 audit evaluations on the earlier Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) authorities’s efficiency being offered by the brand new Rekha Gupta-led administration, has additionally pointed to violations within the licensing course of. It acknowledged that suggestions from an professional panel fashioned to recommend modifications within the policy’s formulation had been ignored by then deputy chief minister and excise minister Manish Sisodia.
The report on the alleged liquor rip-off, which has been a significant flashpoint within the run-up to elections, estimated a income loss of Rs 941.53 crore, attributing it to the failure to safe well timed approvals for opening liquor vends in “non-conforming municipal wards.” Such areas don’t adhere to land use norms allowing liquor vends. The audit noticed that the excise division misplaced roughly Rs 890.15 crore due to surrendered licences in these zones and its failure to provoke a re-tendering course of.
Further, the report flagged a further income loss of Rs 144 crore, citing “irregular grant” of waivers to licensees due to Covid-related closures. The policy’s alleged irregularities had snowballed right into a political controversy, with the BJP launching repeated assaults on the AAP authorities after then Lt Governor VK Saxena advisable a CBI probe in July 2022. Several prime AAP leaders, together with Arvind Kejriwal, Sisodia, and Sanjay Singh, have since been arrested in reference to the case and spent months in jail.
The audit famous that whereas the Master Plan Delhi-2021 prohibited liquor vends in non-conforming areas, the 2021-22 Excise Policy mandated opening at the least two retail vends in every ward. The tender doc had initially specified that no vend could possibly be arrange in such areas except explicitly authorized by the federal government. However, regardless of this requirement, the excise division floated tenders on June 28, 2021, with out consulting the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) and Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD).
Licences had been subsequently allotted in August 2021, even earlier than resolving this problem. Liquor vends had been set to start operations from November 17, 2021, however on November 16, the DDA issued an order disallowing such vends in non-conforming areas. The matter quickly reached the Delhi excessive court docket, which, on December 9, 2021, dominated that licensees wouldn’t be required to pay charges for 67 affected wards. This led to a cumulative exemption of Rs 941.53 crore in licence charges.
The report highlighted that 19 zonal licensees surrendered their licences earlier than the policy expired in August 2022—4 in March, 5 in May, and 10 in July. However, the excise division didn’t provoke a re-tendering course of to operationalise liquor vends in these zones, main to a whole income loss from them in subsequent months. No various preparations had been made to guarantee liquor retail operations in these areas.
Further scrutiny revealed that licensees sought a waiver from the excise division, citing Covid-related restrictions from December 28, 2021, to January 4, 2022. On January 6, 2022, the Delhi High Court directed the division to problem a reasoned order on the matter. The excise and finance departments subsequently proposed {that a} proportionate waiver shouldn’t be thought of, as no provision for such reduction existed within the tender doc. However, the excise minister, Manish Sisodia, overturned this advice, granting a waiver on the grounds that accommodations, golf equipment, and eating places (HCR) had acquired related reduction in the course of the Covid lockdown. This resolution, the report acknowledged, resulted in a income loss of Rs 144 crore.
Another Rs 27 crore was misplaced due to the inaccurate assortment of safety deposits from licensees, the report famous. It additionally revealed that the group of ministers (GoM), headed by Sisodia, altered suggestions of the professional committee fashioned to draft the excise policy. Deviating from professional ideas, the GoM allowed non-public entities to handle wholesale liquor operations, changed the lottery system with a one-time bidding mechanism to allocate vends, and permitted bidders to purchase up to 54 vends as an alternative of the advisable two per particular person.
The report additional discovered that a number of key selections with vital income implications had been taken with out cupboard approval or session with the lieutenant governor. These included relaxations on coercive motion in opposition to defaulter licensees, waivers in licence charges, refunds of earnest cash deposits for the airport zone, and modifications within the method used to calculate the utmost retail worth of international liquor.
“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 crore,” the CAG report concluded.
The BJP has repeatedly accused the earlier AAP administration of intentionally withholding these audit stories. Last week, Delhi chief minister Rekha Gupta had introduced that every one pending CAG audits—together with these on state funds, public well being infrastructure, vehicular air pollution, liquor regulation, and the functioning of the Delhi Transport Corporation—can be made public within the first session beneath her authorities.