Bill empowering Gram Sabha to pass resolution banning opening of liquor vends passed in Hry Assembly

The Haryana Assembly on Tuesday passed a bill which allows a Gram Sabha to pass a resolution banning opening of liquor vends within the local area of a Gram Panchayat if 10 per cent population is against setting up of such stores.

The new law will be effective from April 1 next year.

The Haryana Panchayati Raj (Second Amendment) Bill, 2019also provides that every Panchayati Samiti and Zila Parishad shall hold at least one session in every six months of a duration of not less than two days, in addition to the existing meetings which they hold.

The bill was moved by Deputy Chief Minister Dushyant Chautala, who also holds the portfolio of the Panchayati Raj Department, during the special session of the Haryana Assembly here to mark the Constitution Day.

Chautala said there are 2,300 villages in Haryana which have liquor vends.

Speaking on the bill, Congress member B B Batra, while praising the government's initiative, sought an assurance that adequate steps will be taken to ensure that no one sells liquor illegally in the village where the vends are barred.

Another Congress member Neeraj Sharma said the government must not think about revenue alone and initiate such a move in cities too as liquor vends have mushroomed all over.

"When we are observing the Constitution Day, why should there be discrimination between villages and cities. The people of the cities too must be given a choice whether they want vends in a particular place to be opened or shut," he said.

Chautala-led Jannayak Janta Party (JJP), which had independently contested the October 21 Haryana polls and later forged a post-poll alliance with the BJP after the saffron party fell short of a simple majority, had promised that liquor vends would not be allowed in village limits.

As per the amendment bill, there are instances when Gram Panchayats are unwilling to prohibit the opening of liquor vends in the Sabha area, despite a general demand of local residents in that area against opening of such vends.

"This legislation will bring about such changes in the Act as would help to give precedence to the views of one-tenth members of Gram Sabha, over and above the opinion of the Gram Panchayat," it says, adding a resolution may be passed up to December 31 to make the ban effective from April 1 next year.