Patiala unpegged: Punjab Cabinet’s new liquor law allows booze on highways

Source:- indiatoday.intoday.in

Punjab Cabinet today gave its nod to a proposal to amend the Section 26-A of the Punjab Excise Act, 1914, for fixing the location of liquor vends on national and state highways.

The proposal will thus exclude hotels, restaurants and clubs from the Supreme Court’s restriction on serving liquor within 500 m of highways.

The amendment will bypass the Supreme Court orders that banned operation of liquor vends on highway.

By amending Section 26-A of Punjab Excise Act, 1914, all ambiguities for serving of liquor at hotels, restaurants and clubs.

However, these restrictions shall not apply to the hotels, restaurants and clubs situated on the national and state highways.

Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh chaired a cabinet meeting which gave a go-ahead to the draft amendment Bill, 2017. The bill will be tabled during the current budget session for enactment.

The Council of Ministers also gave its formal approval to the budgetary proposals to be presented by state Finance Minister Manpreet Singh Badal in the Punjab Assembly on Tuesday.

The Council also approved the setting up of a dedicated horticulture university to promote crop diversification in the state, to help in bringing changes in cropping patterns to include the planting of vegetables, fruits, herbs, aromatic and medicinal herbs, fibre and tuber crops, sericulture, fodder crops and floriculture, the spokesman said.

At present, the total area under fruit plants and vegetables is approximately three lakh hectares in Punjab, constituting only approximately four per cent of the total land in agrarian Punjab and a fraction of the country’s total area.

“Green Revolution” state Punjab contributes nearly 50 per cent of food grains (wheat and paddy) to the national kitty.