Hyderabad: Sales of liquor stay unchanged

Hyderabad: Liquor sales have remained unchanged with less than a month left for the elections as excise officials have taken all precautionary measures to curb spurious and counterfeit liquor sale.

One of the most important reasons for sales stagnation was the Hedonic path finder system (HPFS) or track and trace system in which a bar code helps trace every bottle that is sold. The Election Commission had clearly stated that if there was a 50 per cent increase in sales, a case would be registered on the shops.

Speaking to Deccan Chronicle, Mr Somesh Kumar, revenue principal secretary and commissioner of Prohibition and Excise, said, “We can easily trace the people who sold the liqour. Through HPFS, selling of liquor on a larger scale by liquor outlets can be prevented. Earlier, some political parties used to distribute liquor through the coupon system where they used to distribute coupons and asked people to collect the liquor from liquor shops by exchanging the coupons.”

“We instructed every liquor outlet to instal CCTV cameras in the shops and it is the responsibility of the area station house officer to ensure that every camera is functional. We ordered all the liquor outlets to maintain a register which gives information on how much stock of liquor the outlet possessed with and they have to update it regularly. The Excise department is vigilant and is keeping a track on what is happening and deployed a large number of teams to curb the menace of spurious and counterfeit liquor,” Mr Kumar added.

The general phenomenon is the sales of liquor consumption increases 10-15 per cent every year and by 20-30 per cent during the festival season.

Mr D. Venkateswara Rao, president of the Wine Merchant Association, said, “After the implementation of the bar code the sale of liquor in bulk amount became next to impossible for the liquor outlet owners. Purchasing liquor from the Beverages Corporation Limited was also restricted by the government.