Liquor sold more than MRP

By SNV Sudhir

Visakhapatnam, Jan 31, 2012: Local liquor dealers and excise officials have not mended their ways.

While dealers continue to sell alcohol of various brands at more than MRP, men of the enforcement and monitoring authority — the excise department — are still seen cooling in their offices without taking any action.

Both dealers and excise officials have not learnt any lessons from the recent raids and arrest of some liquor dealers in the city by the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB).

A status check by this correspondent reveals that most shops in the city are selling various brands of alcohol at staggering higher rates than MRP.

For instance, Officers Choice whisky which is priced at Rs.294, is being sold at Rs.420 at a popular wine shop located in Siripuram junction.

While Vizag city has 56 shops, Gajuwaka has 148 and Anakapalle 202. Janap-riya Syndicate controls most shops in the city bes-ides two more syndicates.

On Saturday, PVRK Prasad of Janapriya Syndicate, along with Pushkara Ganesh who runs another syndicate were arrested by the ACB for encouraging corruption. “We will be taking some stringent measures from tomorrow onwards to ensure that liquor is sold at MRP,” excise deputy commissioner Bhaskar Rao told this correspondent.

It is learnt that Mr Rao is also under the scanner of the ACB.

Meanwhile, liquor dealers are finding fault with the excise policy of the government and expressed helplessness.

Dealers maintain that they cannot survive in business if liquor is sold at government fixed rates.

They added that the present MRP rates were fixed long ago in 2005 and they bagged dealerships and shops at a high bidding conducted by the excise department.

During the last auction held in 2010, a liquor shop at Peda Waltair was bid for ` 4.72 crore, the highest in the city. Around 56 IMFL shops in the city fetched ` 140.37 crore to the excise department as against last year’s Rs.73.68 crore, registering almost a 90 per cent growth.