Chandigarh, Feb 18 (PTI) Liquor will be costlier in Haryana by up to 10 per cent from April as the state's new excise policy is aiming to collect Rs 3,000 crore in revenues in 2012-13. In a major initiative to incentivise winery industry and protect the local manufacturers of liquor, the new policy slashed licence fee for local manufacturing of wine from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 10,000 per annum. It also doubled the import duty on beer. The state cabinet met here under the Chairmanship of Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda. According to the Chief Minister, the retail prices of liquor, except beer, will be costlier by up to 10 per cent in state. To provide a fillip to local bar vends, the state government has rationalised the VAT rate on bar licences by reducing it from 25 per cent to 15 per cent, enabling the vends to compete with neighbouring Chandigarh and Delhi where VAT rates are 12.5 per cent and 20 per cent, respectively. However, the cabinet decided not to raise the maximum basic quota of country liquor (CL) and Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) for the third year in a row, and kept the maximum number of retail outlets at the same level as in the current year. The total number of vends in the state will remain 3,500, including 2,265 country liquor vends and 1,235 IMFL vends. "For the past several years, our revenue from excise duty on liquor has been constantly rising. This has been possible because we have brought complete transparency and ensured there is no cartelisation," Hooda told reporters later. (MORE)
