It appears that Delhi's liquor woes will take a while to end. There were talks over opening 800 liquor shops last month, but Delhi is currently left with nearly 240 liquor shops. There are no liquor shops in many areas of the capital city, including many areas in South Delhi.
Safdarjung Enclave, Punjabi Bagh, Greater Kailash, Andrews Ganj, Chittaranjan Park, Kamla Nagar, Model Town, Rajendra Nagar, Sarita Vihar, Preet Vihar, and Chandni Chowk are some of the areas that do not have any liquor shops.
From next month, all liquor shops will be run by Delhi government agencies. The government plans to open 500 liquor shops in December, which will eventually be increased to 700 liquor shops.
This plan is not without its own challenges.
The government has not been able to sign off on 300 liquor shops, out of the 500 planned liquor shops. The policy that saw the government lease 476 liquor shops was the main reason why it was changed and the government had to let go of these shops. Now when the government wants it back, they are unable to do the procurement.
The government wants to open liquor shops in lieu of the private liquor shops that will be closing soon.
There is still confusion surrounding the Delhi government's liquor policy. The policy aims to divide the city into 32 zones, but so far only 17 zones have been made operational. 10 of those 17 zones were already in place before the rollback of the excise policy.
The Delhi government has issued 849 retail licenses across the city under the 2021 -- 22 excise policy. The policy was implemented on November 17, 2021. The Delhi government has extended the licenses of country liquor vends by two months to September 30 as new tenders are yet to be finalised. Despite the one-month extension granted by Delhi government on Sunday, vends selling Indian and foreign liquor brands will be shut down despite a nod from Lieutenant Governor V K Saxena.