NEW DELHI: Indian anti-corruption branch has arrested nine excise officials for liquor smuggling and its illegal circulation.
But, more shockingly, flagrant flouting of procedure in sending liquor stocks from distillery to retailer has come to light. It’s allegedly causing an estimated loss of Rs 2,500 crore to the exchequer, officials have said.
According to government procedure, the stock of liquor must be transported by the manufacturer to respective warehouses with valid permit for transportation. The stock so supplied is required to be scanned and recorded at the respective warehouses. From there, they are to be supplied to the liquor retail outlets in vehicles having valid transport permits. Excise officials deputed for the purpose must supervise the entire process.
However, ACB sleuths have discovered that a major chunk of the liquor was not even going inside the warehouse after barcode scan but being transported to shops after unloading right at the gate. This liquor was then being sold off as a priority and excise sleuths dodged with fake transport permits issued by police.
Surveillance and discreet inquiry by the teams of ACB revealed that the liquor stock was offloaded into several smaller tempos. “We received info about big losses caused due to excise duty and VAT evasion in supply and sale of IMFL and foreign liquor. Several teams of ACB officials comprising DCP R K Pandey, inspector Jarnail Singh, SI Nirbhay and others were formed. The ACB team followed the smaller tempos and trucks and intercepted them at various points. Some of the tempos were intercepted after they had delivered their stock in various liquor outlets in trans-Yamuna area,” said additional CP (ACB) P C Hota.
