Lucknow: The Uttar Pradesh government has cleared licences for prominent supermarkets and individuals to sell high end global brands from malls. Out of the 10 applications made to the excise department, the first four licences have been cleared for Agra and Lucknow. In Agra, a mall has already begun sale and in Lucknow, air-conditioned liquor vends are being readied for sales shortly.

 “The six other applications _ two from Moradabad and one each from Gautam Buddh Nagar, Ghaziabad, Varanasi and Gorakhpur _ are in different stages of clearance,” said additional chief secretary, excise, Sanjay R Bhoosreddy. Excise department officials feel that soon about 60 of the 66 malls that got the Cabinet nod in May, would have premium retail liquor vends. The annual fees for running such vends is Rs 12 lakh, lesser than what the government charges from standalone liquor vends.

“There is no restriction on how many liquor vends can be opened in a mall...so the licence fee has been kept low,” the officer said. Tarun Taneja, a city-based businessman who applied for two licences but got one, said he was all set to open his liquor vend in a Lucknow mall. “It’s going to be an altogether new experience. We would cater to a new generation of mall goers, including women, who might otherwise hesitate to approach the conventional liquor vends,” Taneja said.

He said there were many who prefer to gift wine and scotch, which they could now pick up from malls. “It will be an entirely different experience for connoisseurs as well as ones looking to gift imported wine on special occasions,” he said. Such vends are allowed only in malls, departmental stores, super markets or hybrid hyper-markets having a premises of at least 10,000 square feet. “Premium retail vends should have at least 500 square feet carpet area and be able to provide customers the facility to walk in the shop and select their brands from air conditioned shelves,” Bhoosreddy said.

It’s not just about ambience; these premium retail vends would also help in bringing in the much required revenue. “Even now, despite sales (from roadside vends) having picked up slightly, we haven’t quite been able to overcome the losses due to Covid-19 induced lockdown. Post lockdown, the recovery has been slow. So even if marginally, the premium vends would help,” an excise inspector said.

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