Jaipur:
You may soon be able to take a swig of smuggled liquor while placing an order of your favourite drink at a hotel or bar of Rajasthan Tourism Development Corporation (RTDC).
The state government has decided to release smuggled liquor piling at excise posts and police stations in all districts to the RTDC outlets for sale.
The excise department will undertake a statewide drive to test if the liquor lying with police stations is fit for consumption. The consumable liquors will reach the RTDC outlets while the spurious and outdated ones will be destroyed. This is a classic move of killing two birds with the same stone -- the excise department gets to earn revenue out of illegal liquor and police stations get space to increase their service areas.
The decision was taken to unburden police with stock-keeping of lakhs of litre of smuggled and illicit liquor since years. Principal Secretary finance and excise, CK Mathew said that the excise and police stations are stacked with liquor bottles smuggled or manufactured illegally. "We believe that most of the liquor lying with police stations would be unfit for consumption which we will destroy; the liquor which is consumable will be routed through the RTDC for sale," Mathew said.
Police officials said that lakhs of litre of Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) is lying with excise posts and police stations in the state. The liquor has been seized by excise officials and police teams while intercepting smuggling rackets. In all these cases the excise department tends to lose revenue because shipments are illegally ferried to districts. "We had asked the government to find some solution to liquor piling at our police stations for years; they occupy space and we have to keep their record," a highly-placed official in police department said.
Excise department officials said that they have the permission from courts to dispense with the illegally procured and manufactured alcohol. The department carry out its campaign to identify consumable liquor and destroy the rest between October 12 and November 30.
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