Spurious liquor from neighbours floods Andhra Pradesh

Vijayawada: Spurious liquor is flowing from the abutting Telugu state — Telangana, apart from the bordering southern states — Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Odisha. Despite the declaration by Telangana that their state is Illicit Distillery (ID) free state, the spurious liquor flow is continuing from that state, while the inflows from the other two states also remain as it is. A total of '1,000 crore trade per annum has been going on, for the past two years.

The Government of Andhra Pradesh has not so far concentrated on this issue, despite having the huge enforcement mechanism. It is an open fact that liquor from the category of non-duty paid and also spurious liquor from the illicit distilleries has been flowing into the state of Andhra Pradesh, from various parts of Khammam district of Telangana state, in different modes of transportation.

When a case of spurious liquor was registered in Eepurupalem of Prakasham district, the officials have established that it was the  make of Wyra mandal in Khammam district. The mode of transportation that the smugglers have adopted is railway route, which is a convenient way to reach out the 13 districts of Andhra Pradesh. Though the same is the case with other bordering  states — Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Odi-sha and Yanam of Puducherry, Telangana smugglers stood first in these spurious operations, according to prohibition and excise officials. So far, 95 cases from  April 1, have been registered against the smugglers from Telangana only, out of the total 298 cases.

Following lack of sufficient liquor production units in AP, it has become inevitable for the department to allow the  liquor import from other states, according to Prohibition and Excise Enforcement director K. Venkateswara Rao. To overcome this issue, the AP government is considering the proposal of increasing the number of liquor manufacturing units in AP, apart from giving permission to increase the capacity of the existing units.

The Prohibition and Excise officials could not be able to secure hold over the seven   mandals under Bhadrachalam, which have been added to AP, according to a  senior official of the enforcement directorate.  “The spurious and non-duty paid liquor smuggling operations are centered in these seven mandals predominantly,” the officer said and added that if we could arrest those operations in Khammam, the revenues of AP prohibition and excise department will be increased.