Excise licences to be issued online

NEW DELHI: Delhi excise department plans to go hi-tech. In the next few months, it will issue licences online after accepting payments through the net.
‘‘We have initiated the process since April at an experimental stage. Now we want to expand the online network and gradually issue licences on the net,’’ said a senior excise department official.
The department issues 24 types of licences to almost 600 shops, hotels, bars and restaurants in the city every year.
They include nine types of foreign liquor licences, two types of country liquor licences, seven types of licences pertaining to medicinal spirits and six special purpose licences.
The department has started a single-window system for licence issue and renewal. From September 2002 onwards, the entire revenue collection of excise duty, entertainment tax and cables tax is made through the single-window set up in the department.
It has also tied up with State Bank of India to manage the system since April this year. ‘‘We are trying to re-organise the system with the bank so that there is no gap period between the payment and the licence renewal,’’ the official said.
In the first phase of the online issuance of permits, the department has already started issuing L-52 licences, which are essentially permits for private individuals to sell beer and Indian manufactured foreign liquor (IMFL) from their liquor vends.
‘‘But now a person seeking a licence has to come to the excise department office and get their licences. We are trying to create ‘payment gateways’, in consultation with banks,’’ he said.
As a first step, the department plans to engage a courier agency to deliver the licences to the individuals. ‘‘Later, digital signatures will be required and licences can be transmitted online to the applicant,’’ he said.
The department is taking help from the Delhi government’s IT wing professionals to develop this system.