The Andhra Pradesh Government is going to collect Rs 2,000 crore as licence fees and Rs 240 crore as non-refundable application fees for liquor retail outlets and bars in the State, which were allocated on a lottery basis on Monday, according to State Excise Commissioner Srinivas Sri Naresh.

He was here in connection with the lottery conducted for the liquor outlets and bars in the city and the district. Of the 3,500 retail outlets in the State, 436 will be run by the Government. In Visakhapatnam district, of the 406 shops 39 would be run by the Government.

In Visakhapatnam district, the Government is set to earn Rs 176 crore from licence fees and another Rs 20 crore as application fees.

He said "the state government is mulling to merge the liquor policy for bars with the tourism policy. The tourism policy has been declared and we are contemplating how to merge the policy for bars, as both have common interests.”

Micro-breweries

The new policy for bars will be out in about three months' time, he said and added that the framework for micro-breweries is in the final stages. “We have identified Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada, Tirupathi and Guntur as cities to set up micro-breweries. Bangalore city has 17 such kiosks and we may start with five at Visakhapatnam as a pilot project,” he said.

Apart from the micro-breweries, the department is looking at setting up retail outlets at hybrid shopping malls. The department has already written to the Retailers Association of India to notify the hybrid malls with minimum of 10,000 sft.

He said that so far about six hybrid malls in the state, including three from Visakhapatnam, had evinced interest.

sarma.rs@thehindu.co.in

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