TEAM HERALD
PANJIM: The recent excise curbs announced by the Goa government were nothing but a move to crush small businesses at the behest of big hotels, the NCP has said Tuesday, adding that the new rules will be used to victimize those businessmen who are not on the ruling side.
Addressing a press conference here, NCP spokesperson said that the moves on the part of the government have already led to the BJP workers and agents visiting wine stores dealers and owners of restaurants and bars to collect funds with a promise that they would manage to convince the government to at least relax the timing by another two hours for these stand-alone restaurants and bars and one hour for the retail wine stores.
“This is a clear indication of how the big hotels have managed to convince the government to crush the small businesses so that the cutting of timings is bound to increase their business whose licence fees remain unchanged,” the party spokesperson alleged.
The government had earlier issued a notification disallowing wine store and IMFL outlets from getting an extension of timing from 9 pm to 11 pm to sell liquor, which they were earlier entitled to, after paying 50% of their original licence fee. The government has also disallowed pubs and bars to increase their timings from 11 pm to 5 am which they were earlier entitled to, by paying 100% of the original licence fee and restricted it to 12 pm.
The NCP also said that the recent statements of the chief minister were vague to a point that they can be interpreted to victimize businessmen running legal businesses.
“If you are a businessman running a restaurant and are not on their side, they will just raid your bar, pick up your employees on charge that they were bar dancers,” the NCP spokesperson alleged.
