Patna, Feb. 6: The state government is not finding an easy way to implement the partial liquor prohibition scheduled from April 1 as announced by chief minister Nitish Kumar.

Under the New Excise Policy, 2015, Bihar State Beverage Corporation Limited (BSBCL) would directly run all liquor shops but till date, only a handful of shops in Patna have been handed over to the corporation. Most liquor shops are rented properties and a large section of shopkeepers is not ready for the handover.

A meeting held on January 11, under the chairmanship of chief secretary Anjani Kumar Singh, had arrived at a decision that all vacant commercial properties of Patna Municipal Corporation (PMC) in the city will be handed over to BSBCL but the civic body has apparently not yet agreed to that.

On December 21, former BSBCL managing director Ashwini Dattatraya wrote a letter to PMC municipal commissioner Jai Singh, requesting him to arrange for 90 shops for it to set up retail liquor outlets. However, Jai Singh, in a letter to the principal urban development and housing secretary on Thursday, claimed that the empowered standing committee of PMC had not approved the transfer of its vacant commercial property to BSBCL. Singh sought guidelines from the department for further action on this issue.

Eventually, mayor Afzal Imam, who heads the standing committee, had reservations over the locations, where the shops had been demanded. "The commissioner is seeking our approval on the handover of our commercial properties at a few select locations. However, we want the shops to be evenly distributed across the city," said Imam.

BSBCL proposes to run 656 shops across the state apart from those in Patna. "We have identified around 600 liquor shops across the state till date but we have not yet initiated the process of takeover. As BSBCL would run the shops from April 1, we intend to take over the shops in March," said a senior official in the excise and prohibition department.

Nawal Kishore Singh, the president of Patna District Foreign Liquor Retailers' Association, said: "BSBCL has identified more than 50 shops in PMC area, whose owners have agreed to the handover. However, the rent for the shops needs to be fixed up at the block offices in the presence of shop owners."

Digital lockers & GPS

The excise and prohibition department has asked sugar mills, distillers, bottlers and retailers to get the registration for tankers or container trucks they run for transporting raw materials and manufactured foreign liquors before April 1. All those vehicles are required to be fitted with digital lockers and global positioning system (GPS) devices.