Excise department auctions 210 vends in Gurugram for ₹743 crore

The Haryana government on Thursday auctioned 210 liquor vends in Gurugram district through e-tenders and earned ₹743 crore from the bid amount, an increase of 6.27% on the reserve price, said officials of the excise department.

The bids were finalised in the presence of Gurugram deputy commissioner, additional deputy commissioner, four deputy excise and taxation commissioners (DETC), and officials of the sales tax and excise departments.

In the east zone, the highest bid of ₹34.83.crore was for Sector 31 liquor vend while the second highest bid was for Golf Course Road liquor vend for ₹31.9 crore. The third highest bid was of ₹31.85 crore for MG Road.

In west zone, the highest bid was of ₹64.20 crore for a vend in DLF-2, second highest was of ₹42.53 crore for a vend in Sector 23/23A and third highest was for a vend in Sector 18, which went for ₹33.20 crore.

The state was divided into three groups for the process of e-tendering this year and Gurugram city fell in Group A.

The excise areas are divided into east and west Gurugram that have 19 and 21 zones respectively. Each of the total 40 zones comprises a maximum of six liquor vends that are allowed to operate. In urban zones, in addition to these, four sub-vends are also allowed for each zone. The officials said last year the department had auctioned 246 liquor vends and earned ₹785.83, which was an increase of 20% on the reserve price.

The officials said that the difference between the reserve price and the bidding amount is lower this year. The revenue is mostly increased when there are new players but there were none this year, an official said. There may be a possibility of cartelisation by the bidders, an official said.

Also, there was no bidding in five of the 40 zones for which e-tendering process will be started again.

HC Dahiya, deputy commissioner of excise and taxation, Gurugram (west), said they have received bids for 19 zones out of 21. The auction for the remaining zones will be announced soon. The west area earned revenue of ₹395 crore against ₹380 reserve price which is an increase of 4%, said officials.

“This time, we received bids on 16 out of 19 zones. The reserve price was ₹320 crore and received revenue of ₹348 crore. We have earned a revenue of 8.5%. The tendering process was done electronically. The e-tendering process started on March 11 and was open to bidders till March 14,” Sneh Lata Yadav, DETC (East), said.

The state excise department earned ₹6,000 crore in revenue in 2018 -19 and have set a revenue target of ₹7,600 crore for the financial year 2019-20. Currently, Indian Made Foreign Liquor(IMFL) is sold on the basis of the minimum retail price decided by the trader or the retailer.