IMFL witnesses rise in sale

The Lucknow division of Excise Division has a reason to say `Cheers’ as Indian Foreign Made Liquor (IMFL) has witnessed a rise in its sale in last two months raising a hope of `boozers’ giving good business to the department in this fiscal.

As per dossiers, the sale of IMFL was recorded as 3911712 bottles in Aril and May which is 33 per cent higher than previous year sale in the same time span. Similarly, the sale of country made liquor was recorded as 7678654 litres which is 12.4 per cent higher than the previous year sale. The sale of beer, however, was recorded as 6178688 bottles/ cans which are equal to the previous year sale.

“The government implemented new excise policy and a fool proof system to stop the sale of adulterated / fake/ tempered brand liquor sale. The old system of hologram was replaced with new Bar Code system. Now and App is available and a customer may check the authenticity of a liquor bottle he is purchasing by scanning the bar code on the bottle,” Deputy Commissioner Excise Jinendra Upadhyay said.

The officer explained that one get each and every details like date of manufacturing, company which manufactured the liquor, the date of its supply and even the name of supplier and the shop number from which they are purchasing a liquor bottle. 

He said as a lot of paper work was required in implementation of new policy, the supply of liquor bottles and beer was affected a little bit. 

“But we attained 91.4 per cent of the sale target (552.27 crore) in April and May months. The annual sale target is Rs 3278.14 crore,’ he said.

Upadhyay said the department was taking ample measures to ensure quality of the liquor being sold at different model shops/ beer shops. “We conduct emergency checking at the shops to ensure that a liquor shop owner was selling genuine liquor to the customers. “During the raids at different model shops in the Lucknow Division, we imposed a penalty of Rs 3.14 lakh on them for flouting the norms,” he informed.

Sources in excise department said the implementation of bar code was a reason behind the boost in the sale of FML. “Branded liquors, Jack Daniel, Signature, Royal Stag, Blenders Pride, Antiquity and other were on demand before the new excise policy came into being. The customers, however, were wary of if they were purchasing the good quality of liquor. Now they are sure that there was no adulteration, an excise inspector told. He said the department used to keep a close tab on the sale of branded liquor and conduct surprise checking form time to time.                

General Secretary, Lucknow Liquor Association, Kanhaiya La Maurya said there was still some hiccups in the supply of FML to the shops/ restaurants/ hotels. “The delay is causing a lot of inconvenience to the restaurant/ hotel owners. We hope that the problem will be over in the time to come,” he said.