It was the second day of the newly elected 70-member legislative assembly of Delhi. As said by Chief Minister Rekha Gupta, the BJP has presented the CAG (Comptroller and Auditor General) report in the Assembly today, which the party has long alleged on AAP for withholding. As per the report, Delhi government has incurred a loss of a whopping Rs. 2,002 crores because of the now scrapped excise policy of 2021-22.

There have been allegations of corruption on then in rule, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), after which the policy was scrapped down. Then, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Deputy CM Manish Sisodia were also arrested in the liquor policy scam. The case was lodged by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Enforcement Directorate (ED).

The report says, “Excise policy of the year 2021-22 was framed ostensibly to achieve the objectives including to not allow the formation of any monopoly or cartel in the liquor trade, to ensure equitable access of liquor supply to all the wards/areas of Delhi, to allow the responsible players in the industry to carry out the trade transparently without resorting to any proxy model and to eradicate the sale of spurious liquor and check bootlegging.”

Further, it said about the ignored infirmities, “Moreover, cases of related business entities holding licenses across the supply chain and skewed distribution pattern highlighted the risk of exclusivity arrangements and brand pushing…Some retailers retained licenses till the expiry of the policy period, some surrendered the same before the policy period was over. As retail licenses were limited in numbers, it caused disruption in supply because the Policy did not contain any provision requiring the licenses to give advance notice before surrendering the license.”

The report by CAG also states the loss of Rs890 crore owing to the surrendered licenses that were not put up for tender bids. About the losses incurred due to opening of liquor vends in non-conforming areas, the report says, “In spite of being aware that the vends were required to be opened in non-conforming wards in order to achieve the objective of equitable distribution, the Department did not take timely action to work out modalities leading to non-achievement of the objective. It also resulted in loss of revenue of approximately Rs941 crore due to exemptions which had to be given to the zonal licenses.”

Other issues that led to the losses include: Waiver of license fees of Rs144 crore granted to the zonal licensees, the incorrect collection of security deposits from the zonal licensees further leading to a loss of Rs27 crore and liquor testing laboratories for quality assurance, monitoring and regulation were not provided.

The opposition led by Aatishi comprising of 22 MLAs had already started with the protests and sloganeering as the session began with the address by LG VK Saxena. They were all suspended from the house causing disruptions.

As many as 14 reports are pending which purview the performance of the AAP in ruling, the BJP tabled the ‘Performance Audit on Regulation and Supply of Liquor in Delhi’.