A former senior excise official is among the nine who have been served a showcause notice for issuing L-53 licences to departmental stores to serve beer. The list that names eight district excise collectors also includes former excise collector Sanjeev Ahuja. Licence of all the 115 shops that were found to be defaulters has been suspended till new rules are formulated. Newsline had,on April 16,reported that government is mulling new rules as the stores are misusing the current laws. Of the suspended licences,20 were old and 96 were issued during 2009-10. The names of some excise officials have cropped up,but I cannot name them till they are found guilty, Finance Minister A K Walia said. The move to review the licences came after the finance minister came across such a store in his own constituency. According to sources,Walia found that a store,which had an L-53 licence,sold only beer. He then issued orders to hold an inquiry into the case. According to the norms,before issuing a licence the district excise collectors are required to inspect the premises and ensure that the licence holders have fulfilled all requirements. The former excise collector,Sanjeev Ahuja,was the appellate authority. Ahuja is currently posted with DSIIDC as an executive director. The nine officers have been asked to explain on what basis they gave licences to these stores,when most of them did not stock any other goods. Under the present L-53 licence,a departmental store should have an area of at least 500 sq feet. The licence holder has to pay the government Rs 50,000 per year the government is planning to increase this to Rs 2 lakh. The definition of departmental stores is ambiguous in the rules. Departmental store should be of at least 500 sq ft carpet area and having more than one different segments of products being sold e.g. grocery and other household products, the rule states. According to sources,the licence holders were exploiting the vague statement: having more than one different segment of products. In most shops 90 per cent of the sales were that of beer. This is totally against the idea of issuing beer licences to departmental stores, a senior officer said. The L-53 licences were aimed at the retail chains like Big Bazaar,Reliance Fresh,Big Apple,etc. Ironically,none of these retail chains have applied for the licence. The other loophole in the rule is that it loosely states that the store should be pre-existing. It,however,does not mention how many months or years the store should exist for before it becomes eligible for buying L-53 licence. There have been cases where the departmental store was opened just a few days before applying for the licence, added the official. Under the new rules,the Excise department is debating on the duration that the store should exist for before it is eligible for getting the licence. The stores were also seen violating the rule of using only 10 per cent of the floor for display of beer.
