Licence fee reduced, UP gets 360 bids for 11 liquor shops in Noida

Noida: The excise department received 360 applications for 11 liquor shops during the fifth phase of the e-lottery held on Thursday, with officials expecting nearly Rs 50 crore in revenue through licence fees and minimum guaranteed revenue collections.The live online allotment process was conducted at the Surajpur Collectorate as per provisions of the Uttar Pradesh Excise Policy 2026-27.The shops up for allotment included one existing country liquor shop, five newly created country liquor shops, three existing model shops and two newly created model shops.District excise officer Subodh Kumar said that the department received 243 applications for six country liquor shops and 117 applications for five model shops – bringing the total to 360. The department generated around Rs 2.7 lakh in revenue through the application fees during the latest e-lottery phase.“The allotment was conducted on random basis. Now the allottees have to deposit the licence fees for the shops they got within next three working days. If the amount is not deposited, allotment will be cancelled,” Kumar said.According to Kumar, the fifth phase lottery was conducted after several expensive liquor vends, particularly premium model shops with licence fee liabilities exceeding Rs 2 crore annually, failed to attract successful bidders despite repeated allotment attempts since April.“Although applications were being received in every phase, applicants were not depositing the licence fee amount within the stipulated timeline, due to which these shops repeatedly remained unsettled,” he said.If any of the applicants fail to deposit licence fees against the shop allotted to them this time too, that shop will also be cancelled and not carried forward for any further e-lottery allotment, he added.“Though the chances are bleak, such shops which do not get licence fees deposited will be cancelled completely. However, it will not result in revenue loss as we will still have some margin to recover from the existing shops,” said Kumar.The excise officer said the department had earlier restructured the unsold shops by redistributing their revenue targets and creating additional lower-fee shops to make the licences commercially viable. “Following rationalisation, the licence fee of some model shops was reduced from Rs 2.15 crore to around Rs 1.5 crore,” Kumar said.The department has also carved out additional country liquor and model shops to distribute the pending Minimum Guaranteed Quantity (MGQ) and Minimum Guaranteed Revenue (MGR) targets attached to the unsold vends, he added.“If all shops are successfully settled, the department is expected to generate nearly Rs 50 crore through licence fee, MGQ and MGR collections alone, apart from annual consumption revenue,” Kumar said.The revised structure appears to have improved participation in the allotment process compared to earlier lottery phases, officials said.