Audit report exposed corruption under the old liquor policy: Atishi on CAG report

Atishi

Hours after Delhi CM Rekha Gupta tabled the CAG report -- that pointed to a string of wrong decisions and omissions by the AAP government, causing a loss of Rs 2,002.68 crore to the Delhi government, former Delhi CM and AAP leader Atishi, defended the scrapped new liquor policy saying the audit document exposed corruption under the old liquor policy.

She further claimed the people of Delhi incurred losses because liquor was being brought in from neighbouring states illegally. The Bharatiya Janata Party, meanwhile, said the report exposed the "black deeds" of former chief minister Arvind Kejriwal.

“The excise audit report was presented in the Delhi assembly today. Its seven chapters are on the excise policy from 2017-21, and one chapter is on the new excise policy. The Delhi government had exposed the flaws and corruption of the old excise policy to the people of Delhi. Under that policy, liquor was brought illegally from Haryana and UP... This report is repeating the same thing that we said that the people of Delhi are incurring losses due to the old policy,” she was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.

"This report has confirmed our point. There was corruption in how much liquor was being sold. This report shows that more than 28 percent of corruption was being done by the contractors, and the money was going into the pockets of the brokers. This report shows that black marketing of liquor was happening, and everyone knew which party people had the liquor contracts. The liquor contractors made profits by incorrectly calculating the cost price," added Atishi.

The report, which was tabled amid a huge uproar in the Assembly - which also saw several AAP MLAs being suspended - divides the losses into various subheads. It states that the biggest chunk of the loss, Rs 941.53 crore, was because liquor shops were not allowed to open in non-conforming areas - those that do not conform to land use norms for opening liquor vends - under the new policy.

Flagging other violations, the CAG report states that the Delhi Excise department did not ensure proper implementation of Rule 35 of the Delhi Excise Rules, 2010, which prohibits the issuance of multiple licences of different categories - wholesaler, retailer, HCR (hotel, clubs and restaurants - to related parties. This, sources said, benefited certain people.

The report, one of 14, reports on the performance of the previous Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government in Delhi was tabled in the Assembly earlier in the day.