MUMBAI, Aug 6: The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs has initiated steps to bring lotteries under a regulatory mechanism. Even though the central government wanted to bring the business under its regulation in consultation with state governments since 1994, the business has been out of any regulatory mechanism for a long time due to opposition from agents and states.As part of the debate on the propriety of state governments running multi-crore lottery business, the committee is currently examining various options to regulate the lottery trade including a total ban on it through a central legislation in terms of Entry 40 of the Union List in the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution.``The matter is before Parliamentary committee. We have invited views to regulate the business. Even if it is within the purview of the state governments, the central government is competent enough to prepare legislation as it is included in Entry 40 of the Union List,'' said G C Miglani, Deputy Secretary of Rajya Sabha Secretariat.The committee will decide on setting up a regulatory agency by the end of August. The move follows the Rs 2,000 crore Nagaland lottery scandal which has been under Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe since May 1997. The Home Ministry, on recieving complaints about the business, had asked the Nagaland government to stop the lottery. Run as a government scheme, it mainly benefitted a private distributor who promised fabulous prizes running into crores of rupees, without giving it to anybody.While the good prizes used to be given to unsold tickets, the money was allegedly routed to various unscrupulous dealers, politicians and officials The state government received only a paltry one or two per cent of the actual collection. Most of the instant lotteries from North Eastern states are printed locally and sold as state government schemes!There are more than 217 different lotteries in India - bulk of the business comes from Rajasthan, Haryana, UP, Assam, Bhutan, Mizoram, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh, Punjab, Goa, West Bengal and Delhi. In April 1994, the Supreme Court prescribed certain requirements for a state run lottery, but the private agents often flout these norms. Some of the state governments, especially Delhi and Goa, either banned lotteries or framed guidelines regulating them.Lottery is a big business in India fetching an annual revenue of Rs 70,000 crore. Sources add that the average turnover of lotteries in the country each day goes up to a stunning Rs 1300 crore. The daily turnover of Bhutan in Delhi was Rs 35 crore before the ban by Delhi government.Thanks to revolution in telecommunication and computers, the numbers game is transformed into a multi-crore gambling benefitting a few agents at the cost of the public. ``People don't have to wait for weeks or months to get the results of a draw. Agents conduct draws every 30 minutes and release the results to all parts of the country within minutes,'' sources said. Punjab and Himachal Pradesh goverments wanted to introduce `online lottery games' such as Lottu in collaboration with foreign firms to rake in huge profits! In Maharashtra the business employs around 5 lakh people, while in Delhi, it was 10 lakh. A SICOM study said the revenue from the state lotteries which is currently around Rs 40 to Rs 50 crore could go up to Rs 1500 crore, if the Maharashtra Directorate of lotteries is allowed to fully computerise the operation.
