Recently visited Gujarat- excited that the prime minister, in an attempt to make Gujarat tourist friendly has allowed temporary liquor licenses to tourists.
All you need to do is go and register on an online site, pay a modest fee and get your license — Simple.
Simple!!! well …..
Not Quite.
First the online portal is slow and filling a simple form took us about 40 minutes (at a reasonably high speed internet connection- our own dongle) — Make sure you do not make a mistake as the form will come after you feed in an OTP received on your mail. If something goes wrong — you CANNOT get another form on the same mobile no. you will need another one!!!
You would assume that they would need some form of an ID , a picture and some online fee payment but no — the registration form requires
- TWO Ids (one definitely a PAN Card with your photo)
- A picture (obviously hard copies will not work as it is an online registration- make sure you have digital formats handy)
- Proof of travel in and out of Gujarat (woe to you if you did not retain your boarding pass/ ticket)
- Proof of stay (go to hotel reception and ask for a letter confirming your stay with them- or the same from a friend/ relative where you are staying….scan it….)
- pay the online fee
- print acknowledgement (the local theka where you will go to pick up the booze will require a hard copy)
whew- after electronically jumping from cloud storage to retrieve scans to whatsapp to downsize them to acceptable sizes ( of course all scans have to be within the prescribed size before they can be uploaded on the form) to finally having the payment accepted . 🙂
Well now set with the printout of the receipt you get to the nearest local theka (maybe a handful in the entire city of Ahmedabad). Show them the receipt and they ask for hard copies of ALL documentation submitted electronically and you guessed it — -they do not have a photocopier on the premise.
So, you go hunt up a photocopier — unlike Delhi — -where they would have been scattered around close to the theka- these had to be searched for (and Gujarat is called a state of enterprise !!)
armed with all you reach the theka dreaming of the brand/ type of booze you would pick up- only the “sharabi” is allowed inside- the person who registered for a license. his form is opened all documents tallied and verified, entered in a register AND HE ?SHE is finger printed!!
as you see the large array of booze in fron of you you pick out three you want and tell them — only to be told SIr you can get ONLY ONE.
WOW !
Mr Modi — if this was an attempt to make Gujarat a friendly destination maybe the liquor license policy needs to be re thought.