Online auction of 574 defunct/unallocated Excise licences likely to be notified on June 29

The online auction of defunct/unallotted Excise licences, which had been delayed owing to litigation, is likely to be notified on Monday (June 29), and the State government is expected to earn at least ₹550 crore from it. A total of 574 liquor licences that have remained defunct/unallotted are going under the hammer.

For the first time, the reservation quota for Scheduled Castes, incorporating internal reservation, and Scheduled Tribes has been earmarked in the auction.

The auction consists of 477 CL-2A licences for retail shops and 92 CL-9A licences for bars. The online auction is seen as part of resource mobilisation for the State exchequer, which is running tight owing to huge committed expenditure besides about ₹51,000 crore being spent on the five guarantee schemes.

Preparations on

Sources said that preparations have been made for the auction, which has also received sanction from Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar, who holds the Finance portfolio. “The government is expecting at least ₹550 crore which would be the base price, but it may end up earning a few hundred crores more,” they added.

The earlier notified base price for the auction ranged between ₹70 lakh and ₹1.5 crore depending on the location. The auctioned licences will be granted for a period of five years. At 180, the highest number of licences is being auctioned in Bengaluru Urban district. The earlier auction, which was to be held in January 2026, had been notified in December 2025, but was later questioned in the Karnataka High Court, which cleared it in April 2026.

Wine merchants oppose

The auction has been opposed by wine merchants’ associations, who earlier claimed that some of the functional licences had also been identified to go under the hammer. Petitions had been filed in the Karnataka High Court against the auction, but the court has paved way for auctioning of the licences, sources said.

Liquor licences are much sought after in Karnataka since the last batch of licences were issued over three decades ago in 1993-94. In places such as Bengaluru, the sub-letting of licences runs into several crores.

Review meeting

Meanwhile, the Chief Minister, who reviewed the Excise Department on Friday (June 26), warned officials that they would be transferred from the department through the necessary legal route if they were found to not be delivering on their responsibilities.