By Avinash Prabhakar New Delhi, Aug 7 : The Excise Department reduced the number of dry days from 21 in 2021 calendar year to three days in 2022, without seeking the approval of the Council of Ministers and opinion of the Delhi Lieutenant.Governor, as per an official at the LG office on Sunday according to an article.
The source stated: “.the report states that it was discovered from the dossier that in December 2015, under the previous excise policy, the Assistant Commissioner of the Excise Department proposed on 04.12.2015 (while proposing the number of dry days for the entire year) to cut down the number of dry days to three from 23 in the light of the practice of the neighboring states.
“The Excise Commissioner at the time on 04.12.2015 noted in his records that all the states nearby had already declared just three dry days in the year, and according to information gathered from the Excise Intelligence Bureau, smuggling of alcohol increases on dry days.The policy on liquor sales of Delhi should be in line with states that are neighboring and, therefore the policy of the existence of so many dry days (23 dry days in the year 2015) could be evaluated,” he said while talking about the Vigilance report.
“The then principal secretary (Finance) on 09.12.2015 noted that the concerns expressed by the Excise Commissioner are valid and suggested to convene a meeting to ensure that the number of dry days can be reduced.However the deputy CM opposed the decision of the then Pr.Secretary (Finance) to convene the meeting without giving any reason.He was also ordered the 11.12.2015 date 11.12.2015 to issue the notice for the number of dry days during the year 2016.” The report is according to the source.
“It was observed that the idea of reducing the amount of dry days was rejected by the Deputy Chief minister on 11.12.2015 without citing any reason this time, the proposal was accepted by him on 06.01.2021 without even requiring the approval of the Council of Ministers,” he stated in the context of the report.
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