It is hip in Bengaluru, available aplenty in Hyderabad, a buyers’ market in Kerala, and an experience like shopping mall in Puducherry. But in Chennai, the liquor outlets run by Tasmac, which have come to become the state government’s cash cow, have only gone from bad to worse.
Fact File
Chennai:
But officials assure that a revamp is on the cards, which will improve the functionality and image of the monopoly corporation.
Limited brands, forced to shell out extra money over and beyond the maximum retail price, dirty bars attached to the shops, not enough ‘elite shops’ and rude staff, the liquor retail outlets run by the Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation (Tasmac) is anything but a convenient arrangement for thousands of customers This despite the State-run corporation generating massive revenue running into thousands of crores every year from these ‘customers’.
There are more than a thousand liquor outlets in Chennai city and its outskirts, but not a single shop offers choices when it comes to the variety of brands. According to insiders, the officials running the corporation select the companies that would supply the liquor. The customers on the other hand, ranging from addicts to social drinkers, have no choice but to buy what is available.
In fact, the matter had reached the court after a liquor company moved the Madras High Court alleging that the State-run retailer, which has monopoly over the trade, failed to procure equally from different liquor firms. Following this, the court had ordered Tasmac in March 2014 to ensure that all brands of Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) were available in its outlets across the state. However, no steps have been taken till now.
The sales staff at the shop maintained that they were merely following instructions from the top. “We obey the orders on what to sell; we do not have any stake in this,” the sales supervisor of a Tasmac shop in Pallavaram said.
Where the staff have a direct role to play is when they collect extra for each bottle sold. The overall sale of hard liquor, including brandy, whiskey, rum, gin, and vodka, is about 40 lakh cases per month, while the monthly sale of beer alone comes to about 20 lakh cases. Put together, the additional amount collected by the staff runs up to an estimated Rs 60 crore a month – a whopping Rs 720 crore a year.
Such is the impunity with which this is done that even if someone raises questions about the hiked price, the employees would only dare the customers to lodge a complaint if they wished to do so, alleged S Muniyandi, a regular consumer.
The missing elite shops
When they made an entry in Tamil Nadu, elite shops had created a considerable level of interest among the people. Because, they could choose the brand like shopping at a supermarket and are also maintained in a better manner, making it less turning off, especially for those who do not like the chaos at the usual liquor retail shop.
After rolling out the idea in 2012, Tasmac had first set up 50 elite shops in the city, which offered several brands, including some of the famous ones. There were no bars attached to these shops, which removed the concerns such as hygiene and having to deal with inebriated crowd.
The plan was to add 150 more elite outlets. It had made plans to open at least one high-end shop in other city corporations like Tirunelveli, Erode, Tirupur, Thoothukudi, and also to set up elite shops at all airports in the State. However, after promising a sea change for the customers, there are only a handful of elite shops in Chennai.
Tasmac buried the plan to expand the elite shop network citing court order and also being wary of public protests, especially those spearheaded by women, against new outlets. “There is no plan as such to open new elite shops. Now, the focus is to open ordinary liquor shops to increase the revenue, as the government has already closed more than 2,000 liquor shops along the highway following court order,” a senior official from Tasmac said.
“A few years ago, there were about 40 elite liquor shops situated at popular shopping complexes in Chennai. They had all brands, including foreign liquors, and accepted card payments, which made transactions easier for us,” said M Senthil, who works in an IT firm in Chennai.
Shops ridden with burglaries
However, it is not just the customers who are at the receiving end at these shops, say the staff. Despite generating substantial amounts of money every day and also holding one of the most sought after commodity in large quantities, there has not been any effective measure to beef up the security at these outlets.
In 2017-18, as many as 100 liquor shops reports thefts in which Rs five crore in cash and liquor bottles were stolen, said a senior TASMAC official. In Chennai alone, about 50 liquor shops were targeted by the miscreants, the official added. However, senior officials said they were taking measures to improve the security so as to prevent thefts, like installing burglar alarms in 40 shops in each of the 38 Tasmac districts. Steps have also been initiated to install 1,250 CCTV cameras in liquor shops across the State, the person added.
Plan afoot to revamp Tasmac
In a bid to create transparency in sales and purchase, Tamil Nadu government has planned to computerise the day-to-day activities. Officials at Tasmac has decided to appoint a consultant to conduct a detailed process study to understand organisational structure, functions and services of the corporation and to prepare an extensive gap analysis study in integrating the existing system and end-to-end computerisation as a total solution.
The consultant would prepare a detailed functional requirement specifications (FRS) for ‘total integrated solution’ based on this study.
According to a senior TASMAC official, the prime objectives of computerisation was to create a database at the shop level, and also at the depots, district manager office, regional manager office and Head Office. Under this, a single data entry at the shops and depots would update the various databases that are linked to the accounts.
By computerisation, the stocks can be analysed and required quantities can be procured for depots and shops through auto-generation of orders. Auto generation of indents, demurrage charges, statistics to be generated based on criteria like sales comparison as requested by management are some of the other functionalities under computerisation.
Using this, MIS report can be generation, the internal audit reports and establishment matters including service record of the staff and shop personnel can be automated. In addition, automation of the interface with IMFL bottling companies, beer distilleries, breweries and wineries can be brought in. A separate web site would be developed by the consultant for the management to monitor the whole process.
3,866 retail vending shops
1,456 bars attached to these shops
43 depots
Retail Staff
7,287 shop supervisors
15,532 salesmen and
3,644 assistant salesmen