AP traders seek Telangana liquor licences

Hyderabad: The decision of Andhra Pradesh Government to take over liquor trade has come as a boon for Telangana state. Liquor traders from Rayalaseema and Coastal Andhra districts made a beeline to file applications to get licence and run the liquor outlets here.

Wednesday being the last day to submit applications, AP traders' influx fetched the state Rs 200 crore additional revenue through application fee. It is expected the total income from sale of applications would be around Rs 800 crore as against Rs 600 crore earned during 2017 auctions.

Although the government enhanced the non-refundable application fee for liquor shops to Rs 2 lakh from Rs 1 lakh under the new Excise policy for a period of 2019-2021, the demand for applications was high this time.

The Excise and Prohibition department authorities said that more than 30,000 applications were received. The total number of licenced liquor retail shops in the Telangana state is 2,216. The officials said that the border districts of Andhra Pradesh mainly Nalgonda, Mahbubnagar and Khammam received large number of applications.

Liquor traders from Kadapa and Kurnool were keen to open licenced liquor outlets in Mahbubnagar and Greater Hyderabad. The traders from Krishna, Guntur and East and West Godavari districts are vying to grab the licences in Nalgonda and Khammam district where liquor trade potential grew many folds in the recent years.

A liquor trader from Jaggaiapet in Krishna district of AP said that he was in the trade for the past 30 years. He said the only work he knows was to run wine shops. His entire family depends on this profession for livelihood. As the AP government took a policy decision to take over liquor trade, many were shifting their base to Nalgonda district and submitted applications in Kodad in Suryapet to open liquor outlets.

Officials are confident that the government will achieve the target of Rs 800 crore revenue by selling the applications. Liquor traders, from AP who were eager to open the outlets in Telangana, were encouraged to submit their applications and special counters were also opened to clarify the doubts raised by the AP traders before buying the applications in every district. The new liquor traders will be finalised through draw of lots of the applicants and they will start selling liquor from November 1 onwards.