Excise Minister Kollu Ravindra has said the state government is taking necessary steps to curb illegal sale of Non-Duty-Paid liquor and Indian Made Foreign Liquor as part of the efforts under the new liquor policy. This resulted in a rise in liquor sales by 68 per cent in Satya Sai, 57 per cent in Chittoor, 54 per cent in Alluri Sitarama Raju, 58 per cent in Anantapur and 16 per cent in Srikakulam district The minister was replying to questions raised in the legislative council on Tuesday by Parchuri Ashok Babu whether cases were booked against sale of NDP and IMFL during 2019-24. The minister said AP’s new liquor policy also had its impact on Telangana, where the liquor sales have come down by nearly 30 per cent. The minister said the previous government started selling liquor by setting up liquor retail outlets and introduced its own brands by removing the top brands, besides hiking the price of some brands by 150 per cent
This led to a scenario of people buying regular and top brands of liquor from Telangana outlets, which resulted in a loss of revenue to the AP exchequer. “We have removed the 29 brands of liquor introduced by the previous government while making nearly 300 brands available in the liquor shops,” he said. The minister said that from 2019 to 2024, as many as 34,177 cases were booked and 40,918 persons arrested while 24.02 lakh litres of IMFL and 39,582 litres of beer and 10,889 vehicles were seized
He said the government had ordered a probe into the irregularities in liquor trade by the SIT and alleged that soon after formation of the SIT, files related to liquor trade were burnt in the ‘Tadepalli Palace’. However, opposition leader Botsa Satyanarayana raised objection to this reference, and sought withdrawal of words referring to Tadepalli from the records. Agriculture minister K Atchannaidu faulted the YSR Congress leaders for failing to give CCTV footage of the incident of burning of files. Hence, it was difficult to ascertain facts, he said
.jpeg)
Leave Comments