'Online lottery scheme on anvil in Punjab'

The Directorate of Lotteries, Punjab is in the process to start online lottery scheme, an official release said here today.
The move is expected to garner an annual revenue of around Rs 150 crore, the release said quoting a spokesman from the State's Lotteries department.
At present, the department is running 4 to 5 Bumper lottery schemes in a year and 2 weekly lottery schemes in a week.
During the financial year 2007-08 to 2014-15 including part of the current fiscal, gross profit earned by the Department has been over Rs 615 crore including Rs 162.07 crore in 2007-2008 and Rs 16.27 crore in fiscal 2015-16 (up to October).

In the year 2007, 2008 and 2009 department was running 336 weekly lottery schemes in a week along with 4 bumper lottery schemes.
In 2009 department launched a monthly lottery scheme with a ticket value of Rs 10/per ticket, it said.

"In 2010, the Central Government notified new lottery (Regulation) rules 2010. Due to these rules department stopped the draws of all weekly lottery schemes. Due to suspension of these weekly schemes, Government of Punjab lost huge revenue.
To cover this loss, Punjab Government started two monthly lottery schemes in year 2010. After 2010 till date, Government of Punjab is running monthly, fortnightly and weekly lottery schemes for time to time, in accordance with the lottery Regulation rules 2010," it further said.

The revenue earned from the lottery goes to the consolidated fund of the State and is deployed towards the development of the State and its welfare activities, it added.