New policy aims to curtail liquor mafia in Punjab

Tribune News Service

Ruchika M Khanna

Chandigarh, June 13

From stopping rebottling of used bottles of imported liquor with cheap one, to busting illegal distilleries being set up — Punjab’s new excise policy, announced recently, aims to curtail liquor mafia.

In the past three years, there have been incidents when Extra Neutral Alcohol was smuggled from distilleries and methyl alcohol from paint manufacturers. This was used by illegal distillers to make alcohol, which subsequently made its way to consumers. The Amritsar hooch tragedy in 2020 exposed the nexus between distillers, police, politicians and bootleggers.

Last month, an illegal distillery was unearthed in Fatehgarh Sahib, where used bottles of high-end Scotch, bought from scrap dealers, were being filled with cheap whiskey and sold to gullible consumers.

“The Enforcement Wing of the Excise Department is being strengthened, with two additional companies of the police being deployed. Significant changes have been made in the organisational structure,” Excise and Taxation Minister Harpal Cheema told The Tribune, adding that the policy envisaged effective excise enforcement activities at the circle and district level.

Officials in the department say the policy promises to put in place a viable mechanism from manufacturing to the supply chain for effective enforcement with a slew of measures like track and trace software using barcoding on all liquor supplies; POS machines at retail vends; electromagnetic mass flow meters to assess production, uses and dispatch of spirit; CCTV cameras at units; and boom barriers at the gates of manufacturing units.

Track & trace system

• Each distillery & brewery will have holograms and have to print and place barcodes on each bottle of liquor
• Each liquor case will be scanned before it’s dispatch from distillery to warehouse
• The transport vehicles will have GPS-based FASTags and logs will be maintained
• When liquor cases move from distillery to retailers, boxes will be scanned again
• At vends, POS machines will be used for reading barcode on each bottle of liquor

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