This story is from March 21, 2019

Draw held for 713 liquor vends in Ludh dist

Draw held for 713 liquor vends in Ludh dist
Ludhiana: The draw of 713 liquor vends for 149 groups in Ludhiana district was conducted at Harsheela Resorts, Ferozepur Road, amid tight security on Tuesday. The draw was presided over by Ludhiana deputy commissioner Pradeep Aggarwal, who — along with state taxation department officials — announced the names of the draw winners. The atmosphere at the venue was fully charged, as a huge number of liquor contractors and businessmen were present in large numbers, and whenever the name of a winner was announced, a loud cheer erupted in the hall where the draw was being organised.
In the draw of vends within the municipal limits of Ludhiana, contractors Gaurav Malhotra and Hemant Sood emerged as the biggest entity, bagging 11 groups of vends.
Channi Bajaj and Majithia bagged the second place by securing 9 groups, while Turtle Wines got 8, and NK Wines 6. Royal Punjab, Gurdev Sharma & Neetu Company, and Syndicate got 5 groups each, while Arvind Singla, and ADS got 4 groups each, and Bobby Sharma managed to get 3 groups of vends. Until the filing of this report, the draw for vends outside the municipal limits was still going on.
Meanwhile, speaking to TOI, deputy excise and taxation commissioner (Ludhiana) Pawan Garg said: “The draw is being conducted by way of a lottery system, and as the number of applications was huge this year, the process is taking a bit of time.”
The state taxation department is expected to earn a revenue of Rs944 crore from this auction, in which a record 18,773 applications were received, and Rs56.31 crore earned by the department just by way of application fee, another record in itself. Last year, the draw evoked a lukewarm response from liquor contractors, as very few applications were received by the department for the draw, and the department was able to earn only Rs13.59 crore as application money.
This year, the entire process was completed in a hassle-free manner and transparently on Wednesday. It is pertinent to mention that for this financial year (2019-20), liquor vends were allotted for Rs117 crore more than the previous fiscal 2018-19 (Rs827 crore).
The auction took place under the supervision of the deputy commissioner, additional excise & taxation commissioner (Punjab) Kumar Saurabh Raj, deputy excise and taxation commissioner Pawan Kumar Garg, AETC-1 VK Garg, AETC-2 Deepak Rahela, AETC-3 VP Singh, ADC Jagraon Neeru Katyal Gupta, and other senior officials.

Out of 713 liquor vends in the district, 370 were from 98 groups falling within the MC limits, 47 for 8 groups of Khanna circle, 36 for 6 groups of Doraha circle, 32 for 7 groups of Sahnewal circle, 51 for 6 groups of Jagraon city circle, 46 for 6 groups of Jagraon Sadar circle, 45 for 7 groups of Raikot circle, 46 for 6 groups of Samrala circle, and 40 for 5 groups of Dehlon circle.
The successful contractors who got the liquor vends paid 25% of the amount on the spot. They will have to pay 50% within the next 48 hours, and the remaining 25% in the next 7 days.
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