NEW DELHI: Rakshpal Yadav, a farmer in Uttar Pradesh’s Rampur until two years ago, explored ways to increase and diversify his sources of income and came across an e-lottery application for a liquor licence.
When he scanned through the details, he was surprised to know that he was eligible to apply for it. He did and luckily got the licence for his own liquor shop. This could not have been possible a decade ago.
From 2009 to 2018, UP was run by a liquor policy that kept its doors closed for small businessmen. The country liquor wholesale of the entire state ran through one group, the Wave conglomerate of the liquor baron Ponty Chadha.
Rakshpal recalls, “Ponty Chadha had his shops all around, and small people like us were not allowed to enter the liquor business.”
For the new system, he describes, “We don’t have to approach any bureaucrat or political leader to get a licence. There is no human interaction involved. It’s the computer that decides.”
The whole liquor licensing process has become digital and transparent after Yogi Adityanath introduced a new excise policy for the state in 2018. It not only eased the lives of people like Rakshpal but also significantly increased the excise revenue of the state.
In the first 10 months of the implementation of the new policy, a jump of 47.84 per cent was recorded in the excise revenue. A year-on-year surge of 38 per cent was observed between 2017-18 and 2018-19.
The excise revenue of the state has been increasing ever since. From Rs 17,320 crore in 2017-18, it has more than tripled to Rs 57,722 crore in 2025-26, in a period of 10 years, making UP the state that earns the most revenue from excise.
It’s not that there was no scope for earning earlier, but UP could not fully tap its revenue potential because a major chunk of this went to the liquor cartel before reaching the state exchequer.
The state earned less, even when the customer paid more. UP’s liquor prices were more than those of its neighbours, as distilleries and breweries had set their own ex-distillery prices with almost no check for years.
Earlier, a 750 ml bottle of one common rum cost a buyer in Uttar Pradesh Rs 102.28 more than it did across the border in Rajasthan, as recorded in a CAG report. The auditor put the undue benefit to distillers, wholesalers and retailers at Rs 7,168 crore between 2008 and 2018.
The scene has changed now. Now UP fiercely competes with all its neighbours, often offering many brands at lower prices.
The price change shows up at Rakshpal’s counter too. His shop sits on the outskirts of Rampur, on the road up to Nainital, and tourists heading into the hills stop to buy from him on the way, he says, because liquor costs more once they cross into Uttarakhand.
Apart from taking the majority of profits for itself, rather than letting liquor cartels skim them, the UP government increased its revenue through a second route by controlling the sale of illicit liquor.
The state laid a track-and-trace system across the supply chain. Every bottle was coded to prevent any leaks between the distillery and the sales counter. It also helped excise officials to distinguish smuggled liquor from the accounted-for one.
Mukesh Pathak, a beekeeper by profession who helped Rakshpal with all the formalities of getting a liquor licence, explains, “Not a single bottle can be sold without scanning the QR code labelled on every label, including the country liquor.”
“This has ended the sale of illicit liquor, at least at shops. Earlier, there was a quota of sales. Those who could sell less were worried about how to fulfil that quota, while those who had good sales, used to sell illicit liquor also, beyond their quota,” he adds.
He further states that besides restricting the sale of illicit liquor, this system also ensures that no sale is made beyond the shop timings of 9 or 10 pm or on dry days.
The police action against illicit liquor has complemented the QR code initiative. In the month of May alone, some 9,900 cases were filed over illicit liquor and more than 2.29 lakh litres of it were seized.
