RAJ KUMAR
Ranchi, June 1: The Jharkhand government has got Rs 188 crore as revenue in May this year from the excise department, which is a record.
Under fire for changing the State Excise policy, Excise Secretary Vinay Kumar Choubey and Excise Commissioner Amit Kumar claimed at a press conference that the State got the highest revenue collection from the excise department in a single month since the creation of Jharkhand.
“The highest collection remained in February 2021 when the department had collected Rs 166 crore as revenue. In May this year collection was Rs 22 crore more than the previous highest,” Choubey said.
Sharing data, they said this is the result of the implementation of a new excise policy under which the government is getting revenue on the lifting of liquor and not on the sale of liquor.
“The record has been achieved although the shops had not operated for the first two days of May and there was a crisis of country liquor and beer,” Choubey said.
Explaining how good the new excise policy is, he said it is more transparent and formulated in such a way that it gives limited scope of pilferage.
“The new policy puts a check on monopoly as it provides separate bodies for security, audit, revenue collection and tracking. Under the system, an online hologram is pasted on bottles at the manufacturer’s place which can be tracked till it reaches the consumers,” Choubey said.
Choubey, on the occasion, informed that as many as 1434 liquor shops are running in the state. He also said that the shortage of beer will end as a plant is expected to start soon at Bokaro.
The state government has targeted to earn revenue of Rs 2300 crore from the excise department in the financial year 2022-23. In April 2022, when the new excise policy was not implemented, the revenue collection remained at Rs 109 crore.
