Vijayawada: The excise and prohibition department is in a scramble as bar licence applications remain unexpectedly low. With just two days left before the deadline, senior officials are urging district teams to mobilize traders. The govt’s rule requiring a minimum of four applications per shop for a draw of lots appears to have discouraged many applicants. According to information, the department received 1080 applications till Saturday. This is just around 1 application per shop. As per the rule, the draw will not be conducted if any shop receives less than four applications. However, the excise commissioner Nishant Kumar clarified that application fee will be refunded in case draw of lots is not taken up due to shortage of applications. To clear the apprehensions of the traders that they might lose the non-refundable deposit even if the draw of lots is not conducted, the govt has decided to refund the amount in such cases. “The non-refundable deposit of Rs 5 lakh will not be refunded only when the draw is conducted because the applicant will be in the race to get the license,” said Nishant Kumar. The excise officials are, however, hopeful of getting huge response in the last two days. They are of the view that many traders did not file the applications as Amavasya fell on Aug 23, which was considered ‘inauspicious’ in AP. The traders must be waiting for the auspicious days to begin from Monday. “In fact, the state govt received a total of just 645 applications in 2019 and 1140 applications in 2022,” Nishant Kumar told ‘TOI.‘In fact, the state govt expected Rs 200 crore revenue in the form of application fee from the merchants. In addition, revenue from license fee of around Rs 5,000 crore.
