Priyanka Tiwari
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Per a report made public in the assembly on Tuesday, the CAG claims that, due to the misplaced implementation of the government's policy framework between 2021 to 2022, the national capital has suffered losses rounding to over Rs 2,000 crores.
Additionally, the report claims that ‘e’ firms that were not eligible were permitted to tender under the now scraped Delhi Excise Policy, and the AAP government failed to provide any documentation for audit purposes.
Rekha Gupta claims that her newly formed cabinet has documents consisting of 14 sets of reports regarding the policies of the previous Aam Aadmi Party government, all of which detail the misconduct involved in the licensing process. Focusing on a key report, the previous government is accused of ignoring advice given by an Expert Panel to alter the former policy, whom Manish Sisodia, the Deputy Chief Minister and Excise Minister appointed.
As expected, the second day of the three-day assembly session was not fruitful, with AAP MLAs being suspended for demonstrating against the photo replacing dispute in the Chief Ministers office during the commencement of the session.
The report, a controversial matter before the elections, pertaining to the purported liquor scam, claimed that a loss of revenue of at least Rs. 941.53 crores was incurred because the requisite permissions were not taken timely for setting up the liquor vends in ‘non-conforming municipal wards’.
Words like “clam sabotage” is condemned the most by the liquor vend state inters. “The excise department has also suffered a loss of approximately Rs. 890.15 crore on account closed zones grabbing bid surrender and department failure re-tendering,” added the report from the chief minister.
Moreover, as a result of the 'waiver-free' policy for the license holders due to Covid for pandemic related shuttering, additional revenue loss of Rs. 144 crores was reported.Political ‘punching bags’ seem to have grown in volume since Lt Governor W.K. Saxena recommended a CBI inquiry in July 2022, the recommendation is currently being used by the BJP against their adversaries. High profile figures within AAP such as Arvind Kejriwal, Sanjay Singh, and Sisodia were taken into custody by probative authorities, and have served months in incarceration due to this case.
“The excise office neglected to draft created vends within the non-conforming regions in a timely manner. Additionally, the first tender was published on June 28, 2021, without receiving any feedback from the DDA or MCD,” it noted.
Their licenses were awarded in August 2021, in advance of the issue being resolved, with their vending commencement date set to November 2021. The DDA, on the other hand, gave out a memorandum on November 16 2021, banning vends in non conforming regions, as stated by it.
The licensees then filed for case in the high court. The court, on December 9, 2021, gave a partial exemption in the non conforming limit fee encompassed by 67 wards, which freed them of any fee in regards to mandatory vends. This meant an overall saving of over Rs 114.5 crore in license fees per month.
According to the CAG report, “The non-sorting of this issue before notice inviting tender (NIT), resulted in this exemption and a cumulative loss of nearly Rs 941.53 crore,” and provided evidence of 19 zonal licensees that had withdrawn their licenses before the policy expiration in August 2022; four in March 2022, five in May 2022 and ten in July 2022.
The BJP have continued to claim that these documents were kept away from the public by the government.
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