There is good news for liquor lovers in Chandigarh, the capital of Punjab and Haryana. Liquor prices will remain almost the same in the next financial year. Liquor may become a little expensive in hotels. According to the Excise Policy 2025-26 of the Chandigarh Administration announced on Monday, there has been no change in excise duty and VAT on liquor. The license fee for most vendors will also remain the same. However, the license fee for hotels has been increased by about 20%.
The old ‘grouping’ system of auctioning liquor shops has been removed. People did not like this system. Now the Excise Department will auction 97 licensing units. Each unit will have only one retail shop. In the last financial year, 84 shops were listed for auction. But the administration could not auction eight shops. Four shops were returned after the auction.
What’s in the new excise policy
The new excise policy takes care of the interests of all, customers, producers, wholesalers, retailers and the government. For transparency, the allotment of retail liquor shops will be done through e-tendering system. The e-auction will start from March 13. The quota of IMFL has been kept the same. The quota of country liquor and imported foreign liquor (BIO) has been increased slightly as the demand for these has increased. The participation fee (Rs 2 lakh) for the auction of shops remained the same. Export duty has been increased slightly. This duty on export of country liquor (CL) has increased from Rs 1 per PL to Rs 1.5 per PL. This duty on export of Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) has increased from Rs 2 per PL to Rs 2.5 per PL. Permit renewal fee has been reduced.
Labels will be auto-approved online
To save time for license/brand registration, labels approved last year will be auto-approved online. This will make it easier for everyone. The quota of country liquor and imported foreign liquor has been further improved. It has been fixed keeping in mind the consumption of every region. Stock transfer is allowed between two shops registered under the same person/institution/company/firm. A reasonable stock transfer fee has to be paid for this.