BJP had recently taken reins of government in national capital after 27 years, securing 48 seats out of 70 in recent assembly elections.
Delhi Assembly Session Extended in Wake of CAG Report Exposures on Excise Policy: In a major development, the Delhi Assembly session has been extended for two days untill March 1. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in Delhi, headed by Chief Minister Rekha Gupta, had tabled the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report on the Delhi Excise Policy earlier today.
The report named "Performance Audit on Regulation and Supply of Liquor in Delhi" spans a four-year timeframe from 2017-18 to 2020-21, analyzing regulation and supply of Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) and Foreign Liquor in the city of Delhi. It is among the 14 pending reports of CAG on the outgoing Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government's performance.
It has been reported that a few anomalies were noticed in the monitoring and controlling of liquor supply in the National Capital Territory of Delhi by the Excise Department. The report made it known that the state government incurred collective losses of over ₹2,000 crore on account of the excise policy in 2021-2022.
The revelations cast serious doubts on the efficiency and accountability of the Excise Department. The overall financial implication of the audit revelations stands at about ₹2,026.91 crore, evidencing major lapses in the functioning of the Department.
One of the observations of great interest in the audit was the non-implementation by the Department of Rule 35 of the Delhi Excise Rules, 2010, which does not allow for the grant of more than one license to a related party to different categories (Wholesaler, Retailer, HCR, etc.), resulting in the prevalence of common directorship between companies having multiple types of licenses.
The audit noted that the Department was granting licenses without scrutinizing the required requirements, which included solvency, audited financial statements submitted, sales and wholesale price data reported in other states, and verification of criminal antecedents by the appropriate authorities.
The CAG report also emphasized that licenses were granted without following the prescribed Excise Rules and Terms and Conditions for various types of licenses.
The BJP had recently taken the reins of government in the national capital after 27 years, securing 48 seats out of 70 in the recent assembly elections. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) could only manage 22 seats, while Congress didn't win any seat for the third time in a row.
As the Delhi Assembly session is extended, the revelations from the CAG report are bound to lead to more debates and questioning of the policies of the previous government and how they affected the state finances. The extension of the session will give lawmakers more time to go deeper into the findings and discuss the issues raised in the audit.
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