Seizures from distilleries expose illicit liquor trade

Ruchika M Khanna

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, June 2

The recent seizure of a large quantity of Punjab Made Liquor (PML), allegedly meant for illegal sale in the state, from a distillery in Gurdaspur, has established the charge that liquor is being smuggled from distilleries to evade excise duty.

Two truckloads of country-made liquor (1,400 cases each) were seized from the distillery at Keeri Afgana on May 31. The Tribune has learnt that the liquor bottles had labels saying “meant for sale in Arunachal Pradesh”. The Excise Department has not issued any pass for the sale of liquor to Arunachal Pradesh. The cost of liquor seized from the distillery, owned by kin of a religious adviser to the government, is estimated to be around Rs56 crore.

The FIR has been registered only under Section 61 of the Excise Act without naming any accused. The same distillery was responsible for molasses spillage in the Beas two years ago, and was let off after paying a part of Rs5 crore fine imposed on it.

This was the second such seizure. On May 22, the department had conducted search operations at 15 distilleries and three breweries. At that time, 22,262 cases of PML, allegedly meant for illegal sale in the state, under the garb of sending it to Chhattisgarh, was seized from a Rajpura distillery. After this, all 100 excise and taxation officers and inspectors were shifted.

The alleged illegal sale of liquor is a reason why the excise collection has been falling short of target. It was down by Rs286.79 crore in 2017-18, Rs927.60 crore in 2018-19 and Rs1,820.07 crore in the first 11 months of 2019-20.

Mafias active in state, claims BJP

The Punjab BJP on Tuesday said several mafias with interests in different businesses were active in the state, as it accused the Capt Amarinder Singh government of looking the other way. “One after the other, scandals are tumbling out of the closet. The writ of the mafias run large in liquor, sand and seed businesses, but the government has failed to rein them in. On the contrary, Congress ministers are busy fighting with bureaucrats,” state BJP chief Ashwani Sharma said. tns