No Head In Maharashtra Government’s Beer Sop

Ravipal Singh Gandhi

Opinionated

The state government has reduced excise duty on mild beer manufactured in the state of Maharashtra. Although it is a move that I applaud personally and think that it will finally open the doors to supplying hygienic and safe alcohol beverage to the state tippler, it does have its negative aspects. Firstly, the duty on fermented beer has been hiked considerably generating a chunk of revenue for the government and adding one more nail to the coffin of fermented beer manufacture.

Secondly, the reason given by the government to reduce the excise duty is to stop infiltration of beer from other states into the state of Maharashtra. Sorry, but with due respect it makes me laugh.

The majority will agree that carrying three bottles of hard liquor (IMFL) is easier than carrying a case of beer (12 bottles), the price of the three bottles being much more than the cost of one beer case. If the government is really interested in stopping this infiltration on non-duty paid goods into its state, it needs to do much more than reduce the excise duty on mild beer. The right step would be to reduce duty structure on all IMFL products manufactured in the state, slowly and reasonably so as to bring it on par with neighbouring states. Apart from this, the main job the state government needs to do is to make sure that the flying squad whose primary job is to see that there is no infiltration of these good in the state do their job.

The problem is that the flying squad which has been created primarily to check and control infiltration into the state is too busy checking and monitoring the local state excise officers while the borders are left open for business. The squad has no authority to raid wine shops or permit rooms. If they have come to believe that a certain establishment is selling or using non-duty paid goods which have come in from some other state, the raid should be done in consultation with the local excise officer and with special permission from the commissioner only. The reason is being stressed upon because the power is used to harass licence holders.

Coming back to the government’s move of reducing the duty on mild liquor, its a great more towards liberalisation, badly required for an industry which is single handedly filling the government coffers. One hopes that with this move, the Maharashtra government also realises that the more open its policies towards the manufacturers, the better it will be for the growth of this industry.

Although this reduction has been announced by the government the gazetted copy has not yet been circulated and the actual reduction has not taken place as yet. We will have to wait and watch, just how keen and eager the government is to put this into practice. Till then all one can say is that mild beer will still be strong on your pockets.