Goa bars liquor bars

Sandesh Prabhudesai
22 March 2001  

Perhaps for the first time in the history of Goa, a known tourist destination world over, the state government has taken a positive step towards controlling consumption of alcohol and alcoholism.

While presenting his maiden budget today evening, chief minister Manohar Parrikar announced stringent steps towards opening any new liquor outlet, though the tourist state generates major amount of revenue from it.

"Generation of revenue is not my primary motive. The name of the state has been tarnished for proliferation of bars and alcoholism", said the BJP chief minister in his speech. In order to discourage new outlets, he has imposed a non-refundable fee of Rs 10,000 to Rs 50,000.

In addition, he plans to notify committees comprising of health organisations, women's' organisations and NGOs working in the field of road safety, who would scrutinise any new application, based on which licences would be granted.

While rationalising the whole excise duty and licence fee structure in the liquor sector, Parrikar has also imposed duties on imported foreign liquor as well as small export duty on Goan liquor sold out of the state, generating around Rs seven crore.

Besides this, all the tourist and other vehicles will have to pay toll on the border posts, ranging between Rs 25 to Rs 100, while entering as well as leaving the state. Parrikar plans to generate around Rs 10 crore from it annually as around 7000 vehicles enter the tourist state every day on an average.

While going for a massive additional resources mobilisation of Rs 152 crore through tax and non-tax revenue, Parrikar has also declared that Rs 30 crore out of it would be generated through austerity measures and administrative reforms alone.

Besides excise, the government plans to generate around Rs 45 crore through sales tax, Rs 15 crore through entry tax and Rs five crore through entertainment and luxury tax which would include a fee of minimum Rs 250 per day for the trade fairs, exhibitions, sales demonstrations and conferences.

Though the budget shows a deficit of Rs 8.78 crore, he plans to cover it through sales tax revenue generation as he hopes to collect almost Rs 70 crore through it, though the budgeted figure shows only Rs 45 crore.

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