BHUBANESWAR: The state government sustained excise revenue loss of Rs 75.7 crore due to manipulation of manually maintained sales registers by retail foreign liquor shops to show lesser quantity of unsold stock to avoid the special Covid fee (SCF).
Pointing out serious lapses on part of excise authorities, the Comptroller and Auditor General, in the performance and compliance audit report for the period ending March 2022 which was tabled in the Assembly on Saturday, said the possibility of collusion between the licenced retailers and the district excise officers in-charge may not be ruled out.
According to the CAG report, the Excise department notified in May 2020 a levy of special Covid fee, at the rate of 50 per cent of the maximum retail price, on all foreign made foreign liquor, Indian made foreign liquor, beer, wine and ready-to-drink beverages with effect from March 24, 2020. The imposition of SCF was to recover the expected loss of excise revenue on account of shutdown across the state in response to the Covid-19 pandemic from March 24 to May 24 in 2020.
“In view of improper maintenance of sales register and absence of oversight by the excise authorities, some of the test-checked liquor shops had even recorded the sale of liquor on the date of Janata curfew imposed on March 22, 2020 as well on the dates when the shops had been directed to remain shut in response to Covid-19,” the report said.
One retailer - Link Road-3 off shop, Cuttack - had recorded sales of 1,923 liquor bottles with non-existent dates, such as February 30 and 31, 2020, which had also been accepted by the excise officer-in-charge. Nine retailers had recorded severely abnormal high liquor sales of more than 20,000 bottles in one day, the report stated.
“The CAG is of the view that the acts of omission and commission, which resulted in loss of government revenue, were sufficiently egregious, as to warrant initiation of disciplinary action against the excise officers concerned,” the report said.
The risk of revenue loss towards SCF would have been mitigated had the Excise department implemented a software application making it mandatory for the licenced retailers to install and update their stock positions on a daily basis along with departmentally issued point of sale machines to licenced retailers, to mandatorily record retail sales, as implemented by other states like Punjab and Uttar Pradesh, it added.