Officially there is no belt shops retail selling of liquor in Andhra Pradesh. This is an official declaration made today during a review of the excise demand attended by the Chief Minister at the Secretariat.

Kiran Government plans to hike liquor revenue by two thousand crores more to Rs.12, 000 crore by 2014 as against Rs.10, 000 of 2013.

Excise minister Parthasarathy told CM that there was no belt shops permitted in entire state.’We have even removed belt shops set up during the TDP regime but not allowed any such outlets ‘.

However a documentation released by the AP government says that there were five to six belt shops per licensed retail out in districts permitted during drive to increase excise revenue. Hence if the liquor outlets in AP were 7000, then we should have at least 20,000 belt shops. Even in Hyderabad there were nearly 1500 belt shops for the 450 liquor outlets in state capital.