Punjab Excise Minister-led team visits Kerala to study state-run liquor business

PTI

Thiruvananthapuram, June 30

A high-level Punjab Government team, led by Finance and Excise Minister Harpal Singh Cheema, visited Kerala to study the government-run Beverages Corporation’s liquor business in the southern state.

Taxes on alcohol is one of the major sources of revenue for the Kerala government.

Cheema had met Kerala Excise and Local Government Minister M B Rajesh on Wednesday, and his team had visited the Kerala State Beverages Corporation Limited (BEVCO) headquarters in Thiruvananthapuram, a retail outlet in Karikakam in the city, and the warehouse at Meenamkulam nearby Kazhakuttam.

The officials, led by Punjab Finance Commissioner Vikas Prathap and Excise Commissioner Varun Roojam, held discussions with the officials of the Kerala Excise Department and Kerala State Beverages Corporation Limited.

Harpal Singh Cheema, however, stayed away from these visits. The Punjab officials said that they were in Kerala to study the best practices. “We are here to study the best practices, and we are learning them,” Prathap told PTI.

He, however, refused to comment on the question of whether the Punjab government has any plans to replicate the Kerala model liquor policy there.

Earlier, a press release from the office of the Kerala Excise Minister, M B Rajesh, said that the Punjab team is in Kerala to study the Kerala State Beverages Corporation Limited (KSBC), and the Punjab Minister has said the functioning of the KSBC as a public limited company is a model others can emulate and said that he would explore ways to replicate the same in Punjab, governed by AAP.

The AAP-led Delhi Government had run into rough weather with its revised liquor policy, when it decided to privatise the Capital’s liquor business. Opposition parties had alleged widespread corruption in the deal, and the CBI had taken a case. It later arrested former Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia in this connection.