Administrative Council approves updated Excise Policy for 2024-25

JAMMU, JANUARY 19: The Administrative Council (AC) which met here under the chairmanship of the Lieutenant Governor, Manoj Sinhagave its approval to the rolling out of J&K Excise Policy for the year 2024-25.

Rajeev Rai Bhatnagar, Advisor to the Lieutenant Governor; Atal Dulloo, Chief Secretary; Mandeep Kumar Bhandari, Principal Secretary to LG attended the meeting.
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 bye-auction and registration fee of Rs. 50,000/- shall be paid by bidders online through portal.

The successful bidder will be required to deposit 100% 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% 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% 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% 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 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 fine of Rs 40,000/- for first offence and Rs 75,000/- for the second offence.