Liquor ban: Uttarakhand govt denotifies all state highways, circumvents Supreme Court order

To bypass the recent Supreme Court order banning Liquor sale withing 5 KM of National and state highways Uttarakhand govt. on Saturday denotified all it's 64 state highways and declared them as district roads. 

However, the reason stated for the action was "practical problems in the maintenance" of these state highways.

"Highway specifications are posing practical problems in the maintenance, development and expansion of state highways. Hence those falling in the area of local civic bodies will be denotified as state highways and classified as other district roads," an official release said Friday.

The decision was taken at a meeting of the state cabinet chaired by Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat, it said.

Also Read: Man behind Supreme Court ban on liquor getting constant threat calls after verdict

There are 64 state highways in Uttarakhand out of which 63 are located in local civic body areas.

The cabinet also decided to give stamp duty exemption for five years to farmers who take loans after mortgaging their cultivable land.

The reason for de-notification of the state highways was population pressure, heavy construction along them, the presence of sewer, drainage lines, transformers and electric poles which obstruct their development and extension, the release said.