The Uttar Pradesh government has permitted serving of liquor on board the trains to tourists travelling through the state in five safari trains of Maharaja Express on Tuesday. The Maharaja Express is run by Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation Limited and permission is granted with certain riders as in the previous financial year.
One of the conditions is that the service provider will serve liquor bottle with QR code depicting royalty fee paid instead of holograms on the bottles.
A Government Order (GO) issued by Excise department on September 17 says that trains in which the facility will be provided are Heritage of India (Mumbai-Ajanta-Udaipur-Jodhpur-Bikaner-Jaipur-Ranthambore-Agra and Delhi), The Indian Splendor (Delhi-Agra-Ranthambore-Jaipur-Bikaner-Jodhpur-Udaipur-Balasore-Mumbai), Treasures of India (Delhi-Agra-Ranthambore-Jaipur-Delhi), Gems of India (Delhi-Agra-Ranthambore-Jaipur-Delhi) and the Indian Panorama (Delhi-Agra-Ranthambore-Fatehpur Sikri-Agra-Gwalior-Khajuraho-Varanasi-Lucknow-Delhi). The government has asked Excise Commissioner of UP to implement the GO.
