Wednesday, 14 July 2021 | PNS | Dehradun
The pandemic of the Covid-19 has failed to make much of a dent in income of the state government from sale of liquor this year. In fact the excise department of Uttarakhand has achieved 114 per cent of the revenue target for financial year 2021-22. The department had a revenue target of Rs 2051 Crore for FY 2021-22 against which it has collected Rs 2267 Crore. It is pertinent to mention here that the revenue target of the department was reduced this year by the government.
The above mentioned information was provided by the officials during a review meeting of the excise department chaired by the cabinet minister Yashpal Arya on Tuesday. In the meeting, the minister directed the officers to increase enforcement activities against the illicit liquor trade. He also held elaborate discussion on the reorganisation of the department structure so that enforcement activities are increased. The minister took stern note of the fact that the department was not able to recover Rs 93 Crores in the last four years. He said that the responsibility for it should be fixed and it should be examined what action apart from issuing notices were taken by the officials concerned for recovery. Arya said that district level officers responsible for the laxity should be identified and action should be taken against them. The minister was told that 245 posts of the department out of sanctioned 626 are lying vacant. He was further informed that recruitment requisition for ten excise inspectors has been sent to the commission. The minister directed that the vacant posts of general and backlog categories should be filled. On Bajpur distillery, Arya said that its quota of Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) should be increased as it would help in taking the distillery out of losses.
The meeting was attended by secretary, excise, Sachin Kurve, Additional commissioner, administration Udai Singh Rana, Additional commissioner, Headquarters A R Semwal, Joint commissioner B S Chauhan, Ramesh Singh and T K Pant.
