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According to an announcement in Ahmedabad on Sunday, the permits would now be available from tourism counters at Ahmedabad, Vadodara and Bhuj airports to foreign as well as domestic travelers to the state, as part of efforts to boost tourism in the state. The department had initiated a similar move a few years back at the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport in Ahmedabad.
"Foreign, domestic tourists and other visitors, landing at Vadodara and Bhuj airports, will just have to approach the tourism department counters set up there to seek liquor permits. The process will start from next week as orders have already been issued in this regard," Sanjay Kaul, Commissioner of Gujarat Tourism Department, said on Sunday. This takes the total number of airports in Gujarat where the visitors will get the liquor permits on arrival, to three.
Gujarat has a total prohibition policy since 1 May, 1960 when the erstwhile Bombay State was dissolved, giving birth to the two states of Maharashtra and Gujarat. The Bombay Prohibition Act, 1949 is still in force in both states. However, the licensing procedures in Maharashtra are quite liberal with the granting of licenses to vendors and restaurants. The liquor permit in Gujarat is issued to individuals, only on health grounds. However, Gujarat is known to be a smugglers and bootlegger’s paradise with runners known as folders who oblige anyone willing to pay a little extra for the trouble while the exchequer is officially being left out of the loop and starved of the taxes.
"We have taken the initiative to ensure that liquor is not an impediment in the growth of tourism sector in the state. The government has taken this move as it wants to get rid of the time consuming procedures involved in giving liquor permits to air travellers," said Kaul.
A foreign passenger entering any of these passports needs to submit a photocopy of the passport only, while domestic travellers will have to give their identity proof. Once the licence is issued, they are free to buy wine and other alcoholic beverages from any authorised liquor shops across the state, according to the report in DNA.
According to another report in the Deccan Herald today, Gujaratis living in UK have already asked that the liquor permits be made available online so that standing in big lines at the airports is avoided on arrival at the three airports.
Until two years ago, the permits were issued by the Indian high commission in London but the facility was withdrawn. Since then, organizations representing the 800,000-strong Gujarati community in UK have demanded its reinstatement or launching of an online service. ‘If everything is now online, why not liquor permits’, is their refrain. This issue has been reportedly raised with the high commission and also during the 8th Regional Pravasi Bharatiya Divas held in London over two days in October last year, and attended by the External affairs minister, Ms. Sushma Swaraj.
In the meanwhile, Kerala took a pro-active action last month and allowed the closed bars to run as wine and beer parlours in an effort to wean the Keralites away from liquor and hopefully shift to wine, as reported in delWine |