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| Excise Deptt misleading public: JWTA | | 'New Excise Policy death knell for Jammu traders, can't compete in e-auction to save their decades old trade' | |  Early Times Report
JAMMU, Apr 14: The Jammu Wine Traders Association (JWTA) on Wednesday alleged that the Excise Department was misleading public to justify the 'New Excise Policy."
"The new policy is full of lacunas and is a death knell for the Jammu wine traders who cannot compete in e-auction to save their decades old business. The High Court judgment clearly mentions that the renewal of license in liquor trade is permissible under law," a JWTA member told reporters here.
He said, "The department is bragging about transparency, which cannot be guaranteed as in 2005 one of its own employees was involved in the fraud during the introduction of the e-lottery system. The CBI probe had indicted him and it was proven that he had indulged in a fraud to provide benefits to his own people."
"The department is speaking about ending monopoly. By the new policy, a family can manage to get multiple licenses. The solvency certificate is only meant to safeguard the government revenue instead of providing safeguards to a trader, who, in case of any untoward incident, cannot transfer the license to any of his/ her family member," he said.
"In a letter to the higher authorities Excise Commissioner himself wrote that they have received more than 850 emails over draft policy. And he admitted that there is no denying to the fact that a large number of people and their families are directly or indirectly dependent on this business and will get affected adversely by sudden discontinuation of existing licenses," the member said.
The Excise Commissioner further wrote: "With regards to step motherly treatment and regional bias towards the people of Jammu region; it is a fact that the liquor trade is primarily run by people in Jammu region as only four vends are operating in Kashmir. Therefore any adverse impact on the livelihood of existing licenses shall be apparently in the Jammu only. The mandatory amendments are required in the auction rule to make them relevant with the e-bidding/e-lottery process. E-lottery/e-bidding do not have any provision in the Excise Rule and Act."
Further the JWTA member said, "The profit margins shown in the policy are 10% for the retail vends which is totally an eyewash as they have given 10% on the purchase amount. Which actually comes to 4-5 % only. So it's trick to fool the general public."
He said, "Traders Federation, Kanak Mandi Association and Ragunath Bazar Association have extended his support to the agitating wine traders."
Speaking on the occasion Deepak Gupta president Traders Federation urged Lt Governor Manoj Sinha and Union Minister Jitendra Singh to personally look into their demands and safeguard the livelihood of thousands of people by revisiting the new policy. "Hundreds of wine traders are on streets over the past one month in protest against e-auction of liquor vends under the new excise policy," he added.
The JWTA said 30,000 families are directly or indirectly involved in earning their livelihood from this business and most of the present licensees are widows, senior citizens and unemployed youth who have no other source of income. |
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