Wine seized, DC refuses to divulge details

Our Correspondent

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Hamirpur, August 23

Even as the state government claims to have launched a crackdown on the drug and wine mafia in the state, liquor mafia in the district was flourishing while enjoying departmental patronage.

The department had confiscated over 686 boxes of illegal wine from two official outlets, including one in village Bela opposite Nadun Bus Stand and other in village Chowki Churan about a kilometre from Nadaun town in the district.

The department refused to divulge the details of confiscated wine and even of operators of these wine shops.

Sources within the department revealed that the quantity of illegal wine boxes confiscated from Bela wine shop comprised about 368 boxes of country made liquor and over 300 plus boxes from Chowki Churan.

It was also suspected that the wine confiscated could allegedly be spurious as the dealers did not have any verified stock document of the source of procurement at the time of action.

Notably, the wine in general and beer in specific was sold at much higher cost of ‘Maximum Retail Price’ printed on the bottles.

Kulbhushan Gautam, Deputy Commissioner, State Taxes and Excise Taxation, when asked about the details of seized wine and contractors, refused to divulge the details and said that the contractors had been challaned and the matter was sent to Collector cum Joint Commissioner, State Taxes and Excise at Mandi.

“I cannot reveal the names of wine contractors from whose shops illegal wine was confiscated”, Our teams are regularly checking the selling price of wines and anyone found over charging would be booked as per law”, he added.