UP third state with death penalty for bootleggers

LUCKNOW: Uttar Pradesh on Monday became the third state in the country to have an Act providing for death penalty to bootleggers with governor Ram Naik giving his assent to the UP Excise (Amendment) Bill, 2017. Delhi and Gujarat have similar Acts.

The move came just before the Yogi government is set to unveil an all-new excise policy that could be markedly different from the ones that Bahujan Samaj Party and the Samajwadi Party governments favoured.

The Bill has the provisions of death penalty, life sentence and hefty fine in case death is caused due to consumption of spurious liquor.

The state’s liquor lobby welcomed the Act but seemed a little skeptical of the government’s proposed excise policy, the contents of which they claimed to know.

“The government is claiming that the new excise policy will provide for a level playing field by ending special excise zone. That’s welcome but then we have learnt that the new policy will instead of renewing old licenses get applicants to take six shops. If true, this will make the new policy again tilt in favour of the moneyed,” said Kanhaiyalal Maurya of the Lucknow Sharab Association.

Several liquor sellers also took out a march in the state capital to highlight the need for a policy that also protects ‘small businessmen.’

Sources in the state government suggested that special excise zone of Meerut under which a prominent liquor baron was given wholesale rights to sell liquor might be done away with in the new policy.

They also pointed to the recent crackdown on shops fleecing consumers, including those managed by the firm run by late liquor baron’s family, as proof of the government’s resolve to cleanse the trade.