COIMBATORE: Over Rs 15 crore worth of liquor bottles supplied to Tasmac outlets in the Coimbatore division have been returned to the godown at Peelamedu, according to Tasmac employees. They allege that the returns are due to scanning devices being unable to pick up the bottles' QR codes.
Tasmac porters union president Beer Mohammed said, "Over 18,000 cases of returned liquor bottles have been kept in the godown. After the implementation of the scanning system, our workload has increased. We are working three to four hours additionally to arrange the returned bottles from the outlets. Employees are not able to handle new cases due to the space occupied by the returned bottles. Workers are facing hardship in differentiating the old and new cases. Tasmac is yet to clarify whether they are going to return the cases to the companies or destroy them."
Tasmac employees union president A John said, "As part of end-to-end computerization and monitoring of liquor bottles, the new system was implemented by the administration after spending over Rs 294 crore. A QR code is affixed on all bottles at production units. At the end point, supervisors can only sell the bottles after scanning them with a hand-held device. If the device does not scan the code, salesmen should not sell the bottles and must return them to the godown. The problem is that shops have stock, but salesmen cannot sell them as the QR codes are not being read by the device." He added that workers are doing overtime until midnight to tally accounts.
A supervisor said, "Shop supervisors are instructed to return the unread bottles to godowns. The supervisor themselves should incur the cost for vehicles and porters. After taking the bottles to the godown, staff will not take or acknowledge the returns immediately. They will delay the unloading of bottles from vehicles for hours, for up to five hours. To speed up work, godown staff should be given Rs 2,000 to Rs 3,000. I have spent Rs 15,000 for this purpose. Despite this, the administration assured to reimburse Rs17 per case for returned bottles, which they have not given so far."
Speaking to TNIE, Senior Regional Manager (SRM) of Coimbatore R Govindarasu said, "The administration has implemented the system, and it will take time to regularise it. Due to connectivity issues, bottles might not be read by the devices. We will clear the bottles which were returned from outlets after an aggregation process, and they will be delivered to outlets again. Tasmac employees will be reimbursed for the expenses incurred by them."
Official sources from the Madurai Tasmac department stated that no such issues were reported in their district. They clarified that if bottles cannot be scanned, they are sent back to the company directly from the godown itself. As such issues are monitored at the godown level, there are fewer chances of such bottles reaching the outlets.
Office bearers of the Tasmac staff association in Thanjavur also stated that they had no such problems. When contacted, Minister for Prohibition and Excise S Muthusamy, said he would look into the matter.