Team Herald
PANJIM: Excise Department has begun renewing licenses of alcohol outlets that come within the ambit of the Supreme Court’s fresh order partially relaxing some conditions on banning highway liquor vends only for small towns with a population of less than 20,000.
Similarly, licence renewal of wholesalers also began from Friday as, an excise official said, they do not come within the ambit of SC order.
“The wholesalers’ licences are being renewed because they supply products to retailers only. They are therefore exempted from the ban order. We have instructed the concerned excise inspectors to begin the process of renewing licences of liquor outlets that fall beyond 220 metres of the highways in the areas having a population not more than 20,000,” the official told Herald.
The exercise commenced a day after the department received an official communiqué from the State government in connection with a set of options offered to the affected liquor traders in a bid to protect their livelihood. The order also includes the procedure to exempt liquor outlets that fall under the purview of the modified SC order.
