Vijayawada:As Andhra Pradesh gets ready to unroll the state’s new excise shop policy from October 1, liquor traders have sought a 20 per cent trade margin on issue price, so that their business remains “viable.”
The excise department has called for feedback from the retail traders, who are licensees, for formulation of the new liquor policy. The existing policy that expires on September 30 lasted two years.
The present profit margin for traders is around 13.5 per cent, which is cited as insufficient. The traders running around 3,490 retail shops claim that nearly 40 per cent of them are “incurring losses” while the remaining have not got substantial profits. “We raised bank loans for setting up the shop and have to clear the loan from the profits we get,” they reason.
Sources say a reason for the financial discomfiture of liquor traders is also the huge cuts that politicians and officials make from this business.
