BENGALURU: Hundreds of liquor vends in the central business district of Bengaluru -MG Road, Brigade Road, Church Street and even Indiranagar -are set to close after June 30 when the Supreme Court ban on liquor sale within 500 metres of a highway, kicks in.

With just eight days to go before liquor licences expire, the excise department has refused to renew them, citing the SC order. Several five-star hotels, high-end pubs, bars and restaurants, and retail outlets have been sent back by the department.

“We cannot renew licences unless they relocate more than 500 metres from the national highway . Or stretches of national highways have to be denotified, which has not happened as yet,“ additional excise commissioner Rajendra Prasad said.

The Supreme Court, in its order dated March 31, prohibited liquor trade within 500m from the edge of highways.Booze sale is not allowed within a 220m range from highways in small towns, with populations of under 20,000.

For all practical purposes, MG Road and Old Madras Road, from Trinity Circle towards KR Puram, are not highways. They are maintained by the BBMP, and flanked by dense residential and commercial areas.

BBMP mayor G Padmavathi said, “These roads in the heart of the city are highways only in the record books. All maintenance work and development is carried out by the BBMP. The state government is in talks with NHAI to convince them to hand over the roads, but there is no official communication in this regard.“

In the record books, MG Road and Old Madras Road are national highways, which is affecting liquor licence holders. The books show the road star ting from Basaveswara Circle , passing through Raj Bhavan and MG Road till Trinity Circle, before reaching Old Madras Road, as a national highway .No liquor sales will be allowed 500metres around it.

Similarly, another national highway starts from Town Hall and passes through JC Road , leading to Hosur Road.

“Denotification of national highways is the Centre's prerogative. We are waiting for the response from the ministry of highways to the state government's request to deno tify the selected stretches,“ M Lakshminarayan, principal secretary , PWD, said.

“The government should have taken measures to denotify these stretches soon after the Supreme Court's order.They wasted valuable time and are now pointing at the Centre,“ said G Honnagiri Gowda, president of Karnataka Wine Merchants Association.

Bengaluru development minister K J George had told TOI earlier: “Technically they may be national highways, but they are maintained by the BBMP. We will convince the Centre not to consider them as highways.“

While 6,015 liquor vends were slated to close across the state, the state government's June 13 move to redesignate 1,476.69km of state highways as those under Urban Local Bodies , saved 3,200.A proposal seeking to denotify select stretches of national highways is still pending before the Centre.

