Four Northeast states to impose cess on liquor

GUWAHATI: Four northeastern neighbouring states – Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya and Nagaland — are jointly working on simultaneous imposition of cess on liquour in their respective states.
Assam finance minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said, “We all are working closely for an integrated structure for increasing prices of liquour. Only one state doing it alone will not help.”
Assam cabinet will take the decision on Friday and the integrated structure has become necessary to cut off smuggling of liquour from the state where the price is less. At the same time, it will provide the much needed excise duty to the states in this time of ongoing financial crisis due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
At present liquor prices in Arunachal Pradesh and Meghalaya are lower than that in Assam. Sarma said, “Recently Assam and Meghalaya successfully implemented a joint decision to hike VAT on petrol and diesel.”