Give liquor shop licences to toddy tappers' societies: BJP

 HYDERABAD: The BJP has demanded that the state government implement 15 per cent reservation in the allotment of liquor shops to members of the traditional toddy tapping Goud community by issuing liquor shop licences to toddy tapping societies and not to rich and wealthy individuals of the community.

The party also said to make the application process affordable, the government must reduce the non-refundable application fee from Rs 2 lakh to Rs 25,000 for individual applications from the poor SC and ST communities.

Addressing a press conference, former MP and party leader Dr Boora Narasaiah Goud said the government set itself a target of earing Rs 2,000 crore from the application process for liquor shop licence distribution alone. “The entire process is being abused by wealthy BRS leaders who are using in many cases the names of people for applying under the reserved categories for the shops. We also demand that Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao order an investigation into the process of allotting licences for ‘elite liquor stores’ as this system too is being abused by the rich and powerful,” Goud said.

The government must also explain why liquor costs the highest in Telangana state. For instance, two popular brands of whiskey which cost Rs 880 and Rs 1,320 per bottle in the state are sold for Rs 660, and for Rs 780 in Haryana. In other states too liquor is much cheaper than in Telangana. A popular brand of beer which sells for Rs 135 in Telangana state is sold in Bengal for Rs 80 per bottle, and Telangana state consumes 40 crore litres of beer a year, he said.