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Liquor to flow in AP resorts
The state government has issued a GO (MS No. 470) permitting beverages in food plazas and beach resorts as part of the endeavour to boost tourism in the sunrise AP.
​Vijayawada: The choicest brands of liquor, wine and beer will be within the reach for tipplers in food plazas and tourist resorts across the state from January 1.
The state government has issued a GO (MS No. 470) permitting beverages in food plazas and beach resorts as part of the endeavour to boost tourism in the sunrise AP.
The GO issued on Thursday draws cheers from the hospitality industry while raising hackles from the women activists. The bar licence is presently limited to 26 three-star or higher-rated hotels only. As the bar licence is as expensive as Rs 50 lakh, the small hotels could not access the facility.
The GO came in the wake of a representation from the Andhra Pradesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry Federation to the government for extension of the facility to all the small hotels and plazas and tourist resorts.
The chambers suggested that the licence fee should not be more than Rs 5 lakh. The GO said the resorts and the hotels/ food plazas willing to have bar facility are required to apply for licence from the Department of Prohibition and Excise.
It allows sale of beer, wine and ready to drink alcoholic beverages in glasses or in sealed bottles for consumption within the licenced premises only.
Welcoming the GO, K Lakshminarayan of the AP Chambers of Commerce and Industry Federation said that it is expected to give a big boost to tourism industry in the state, especially beach tourism.
The government has received MoUs with Rs 5,000 crore from investors from within and outside the country for establishing tourist resorts along the coast.
Although the Visakhapatnam- Bheemli beach resorts are attracting visitors, they serve as ‘see and enjoy’ purpose only.
Bathing is not conducive in the stretch and that the foreign visitors may not relish the spots. According to Lakshminarayana, the beaches at Manginapudi in Krishna district, Cheerala, Vodarevu and Ramayapatnam are found to be ideal for bathing, skin tanning and skin drying which the foreign visitors like the most.
A resort already started functioning in the beach near Chirala while another resort promoted by a Dubai-based firm is fast coming up at the same place.
D Rama Devi, state secretary of the All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA) trained guns against the government for turning the “sunrise AP into a drunkard state”.
She wondered why the TDP government was enamoured of promoting foreign culture in the name of tourism promotion at the expense of native cultures and history. Rama Devi said the AIDWA was planning for an agitation in December against the government’s decision.
By: Nagaraja Gali
