CHENNAI: A special division bench of the Madras High Court on Thursday set a deadline of November 30, 2025, for the Tamil Nadu government to implement the liquor bottle buyback scheme across the state.
“The scheme shall completely be implemented in all shops in all districts by November 30, 2025,” ordered the bench of justices N Sathish Kumar and D Bharatha Chakravarthy while hearing a batch of petitions.
The bench also asked the managing director of the Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation (Tasmac) to hold a meeting with the manufacturers of liquor for taking back the bottles as mandated by Rule 17 of the Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016, as amended in 2020.
The counsel for Tasmac submitted that only three liquor manufacturing companies have agreed to take back the bottles directly from the retail vending shops while others did not agree to it.
As per a report submitted on behalf of the managing director of Tasmac, the buyback scheme has been implemented in 17 districts fully and partially in seven districts.
According to the report, as on August 15, 2025, 113.81 crore liquor bottles were sold in these districts, of them 71.39 crore bottles were returned through Tasmac retail outlets, and 40.62 crore bottles through bars.
Due to the collection of an additional amount of Rs 10 for the bottle, Tasmac collected Rs 1138.14 crore; out of which, Rs 1120.28 crore was returned to the buyers after they returned the bottle and a balance of Rs 17.86 crore is with the Tasmac, the report stated.
It informed that despite difficulties and resistance from all categories of shop personnel, Tasmac has successfully implemented the end-to-end computerisation project throughout the state. The implementation of this system ensures that each and every sale of liquor bottles is properly accounted for and details can be seen in multiple dashboards.
The court directed Tasmac to submit a report on the progress in the implementation of the scheme by October 10 and accordingly adjourned the hearing.
Find out how foreign countries deal with rabid dogs: HC to TN
Chennai: The Madras HC has asked the state to find out the practices adopted in foreign countries for handling rabies-infected dogs so as to put in modalities for effective handling of such canines. The first bench of Chief Justice Manindra Mohan Shrivastava and Justice G Arul Murugan on Thursday made the suggestion while hearing a PIL petition against dog bites in public places where aggressive dog breeds like Rottweiler are taken, endangering the life of the public. The bench also raised concerns regarding the safety of the handlers if rabies-infected dogs are kept in a shelter. Following the submission of the state that the Supreme Court has directed all the HCs to forward dog menace-related cases to the apex court, the bench directed the Registry to forward such cases to the apex court. ENS