In the last few years, the Delhi government has focused on only one source to increase its revenues – the sale of liquor. While the sale of liquor is a major source of revenue for almost every state in the country, the Delhi government’s single-minded focus on making the city ‘Wine Shop’ capital of the country is disturbing.
Recently the Delhi government brought a new liquor policy in order to increase the number of shops and sales of liquor. The liquor policy is receiving more iterations and focus than issues like schools, hospitals, and civic facilities, promising which the Kejriwal government came to power.
The kids in Delhi government schools receive sub-standard education in the last two years and the people who were suffering from the non-Covid disease had to face worse given the government’s priority of combating the virus. The Kejriwal government could not do much in these because they were out of his control, but now he has the opportunity to heal the wounds of the Delhi people by focusing on schools and Delhi.
But the Kejriwal government is more interested in increasing revenue by selling liquor because it needs money to expand the activities of the party in the states like Goa, Gujarat, Punjab. Moreover, the Kejriwal government is among the highest spenders on the media, so it needs money to ensure that the mainstream TV channels do not air anything that is against the narrative.
Under the new excise policy of the Delhi government, a total of 552 liquor shops, out of the 849 permitted vends have been opened. The government has divided the city into 32 zones and every zone has 8 to 9 wards the Delhi government is ensuring that every zone has 3 to 4 wine and spirit shops.
In 2015, the city has only 250 liquor shops, which translates into less than 1 shop in every zone. There were around 30 zones with no wine shops but now every zone will have more than one wine shop.
The Kejriwal government promised the moon and earth in its manifesto. Although no government delivers on all the promises but some essential things like the promise of 500 new schools, multiple public colleges in the city, renewal of slums, improved delivery of medical services, increase in density of doctor to population ratio, better trained paramedical staff is in the must-do list, and the government should focus on delivering in these items.
During the Covid period, the people living in slums faced miserable conditions and many of them were forced to leave for their native places on foot. The Delhi government has promised home delivery of PDS food to every person below the poverty line in the city, but it could deliver on that also.
Despite having a very high per capita income, the density of schools and colleges is very low when compared to other cities with high per capita income like Goa, Pondicherry, Chandigarh. The Delhi government is focusing on increasing revenue to ensure that it’s spending on advertisement is maintained and no negative news about him or his government is shown.
Kejriwal came to power with the promise of good governance and better delivery of better services but he shifted the focus to media management.
Public interest litigation (PIL) has been filed in the Delhi High Court by BJP leader Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay against the Kejriwal government’s effort to make the city liquor capital of the country. Delhi’s excise revenue is around 6,000 crore rupees and the Kejriwal government aims multi-fold increase by getting the city addicted to liquor and these efforts must be stopped. This does not mean we advocate for a ban on liquor sales, but it must not be encouraged. The government must encourage and promote welfare activities, not liquor sales!