UDF poised to recast LDF’s ‘permissive’ liquor policy as it prepares to promulgate it on November 30

The Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) government’s subcommittee formulating the liquor policy for the 2026-27 fiscal year was reportedly poised to recast the arguably “permissive” State Excise rules framed by the previous Left Democratic Front (LDF) dispensation.Excise Minister M. Liju told The Hindu that the UDF would “dismantle the rules and amendments” that gave deputy excise commissioners the power to grant bar licenses. Instead, he said, the framers of the new liquor policy would vest such authority with the political executive.Mr. Liju refused to hazard a guess on whether the essence of the UDF’s upcoming liquor policy, which the government is scheduled to announce on November 30, would be restrictive, or a whittled-down hark back to the Oommen Chandy government’s 2014 decision to close over 700 bars, supposedly to curb the easy availability of liquor and reduce consumption of hard spirits by permitting the shuttered outlets to sell wine and beer instead.Instead, Mr. Liju merely noted that the previous LDF government reinstated 488 bar licences cancelled by the Oommen Chandy government by “watering down” the vetting process and empowering the Excise department bureaucracy to infringe on or bypass policy matters, which are the political executive’s sole preserve.Mr. Liju said the government would decide whether to issue more licenses, including to 29 new applicants, only after it promulgates the UDF’s Excise policy.Senior Excise officials privy to the policy-making process said the UDF would divest Deputy Excise Commissioners of the statutory power, granted by the previous LDF dispensation, to reclassify wine and beer parlours as bars if the outlets get four-star classification, and to issue new licenses to fresh applicants.They said the UDF might also annul the provision allowing closed bars to renew their licenses within 24 hours of submitting their application and propose a stricter, more restrictive vetting process. They said the government will likely not allow “crowding of bars” within a relatively small radius. “Issuing up to 15 bar licenses within a radius of 1 or 2 km runs against the grain of UDF’s political mandate to reduce the consumption of hard spirits incrementally”, an official said.The framers of the UDF’s liquor policy seemed to walk a tightrope between the State’s fiscal exigencies and social, religious and political sensitivities, including public health and family welfare concerns, centred around liquor consumption. Notably, Keralam has among the highest per capita liquor consumption in the country.Officials said the government must factor in that States derive independent revenue from liquor and fuel taxes, with the nationwide goods and services tax (GST) supplanting a range of State levies.Moreover, a significant portion of the legal alcohol consumed in Kerala is imported from other States, resulting in substantial revenue outflows, another financial fact the sub-committee would reportedly weigh with due gravity.According to UDF insiders, the government was loath to further raise the State cess on fuel, given the spectre of price rises, higher commuting costs, inflation, and opposition protests. Published - November 03, 2026 04:14 pm IST