The newly elected Delhi government run by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has said that due to the implementation of the new liquor policy under the AAP from November 2021 to August 2022, only private shops were allowed to sell alcohol. It said that over ₹5,000 crore was collected from taxes on liquor in the current financial year.
Responding to a question asked by BJP MLA Abhay Verma in the Delhi Assembly, the government said it earned revenue of ₹5,068.92 crore from excise duty and VAT (value added tax) on the sale of liquor in the financial year 2024-25, till February.
The question comes at a time when the BJP has continued to attack the AAP over the alleged liquor policy scam. Former chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and his deputy Manish Sisodia were among the AAP leaders who were jailed in connection with the alleged scam.
The new Rekha Gupta-led BJP government reported that ₹5,164 crore was collected in taxes on alcohol in 2023-24, ₹5,547 crore in 2022-23 and ₹5,487 crore in 2021-22. The government stated that due to the implementation of the new liquor policy in Delhi under the AAP from November 2021 to August 2022, only private shops were allowed to sell alcohol. However, when the old liquor policy was reimplemented in September 2022, government liquor stores were permitted to operate.
In 2023-24, 21.27 crore litres of alcohol were sold in Delhi, which translates to 5.82 lakh litres per day, while the figure for 2022-23 was 25.84 crore litres.
