Hyderabad: New Year’s eve would remain incomplete without consumption of liquor for many people in Telangana and so it was in 2024.
An indication towards this can be gauged from the fact that people gulped almost Rs 926 crore worth of liquor in the last four days of the year.
According to officials from the prohibition and excise department, liquor sales worth Rs 926 crore were recorded from December 28 till the night of December 31 with December 30 recording the highest in terms of volume at Rs 402 crore. Incidentally, sales dipped by 29.85 per cent on December 31 compared to the previous day’s high at Rs 282 crore, which officials attribute to shortage of supply.
While liquor worth Rs 51 crore was sold on December 29, it netted Rs 191 crore on December 28. The entire month of December recorded sales worth Rs 3,615 crore.
This shows that around 25.6 per cent of liquor was purchased and consumed in the last four days of the month, nay year. However, this is lower than the sale recorded in December 2023, which was estimated at Rs 4,274 crore, while it was a mindboggling Rs 31,000 crore in 2022 December.
Excise officials said that around 50 per cent of the liquor that was sold in the state was consumed by people in Hyderabad and Rangareddy districts.
Meanwhile, the Telangana Anti-Narcotics Bureau (TGANB), in a joint operation with the excise department, the SOT and the local police caught five persons, who were allegedly under the influence of drugs.
No person was caught under the influence of drugs in 2023.According to TGANB director Sandeep Shandilya, none of the DJs at any pub tested positive.
