CHENNAI: Prohibition and Excise Minister K Vignesh on Tuesday appealed to Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation (Tasmac) employees to return to duty from Wednesday, assuring the government would soon introduce a new system to collect used liquor bottles through an external agency.
In his statement, the minister said, “Based on the directions of the Madras High Court, the scheme to collect used empty liquor bottles was first introduced as a pilot project in the Nilgiris district in May 2022. The scheme was later expanded in phases and is currently being implemented in all districts except Chennai, Tirunelveli and Virudhunagar”.
Employees had been raising complaints for some time over several practical difficulties in implementing the scheme. Insisting that empty liquor bottles should be collected through an outside agency, most Tasmac outlets in Erode, Salem, Namakkal, Tiruppur, Krishnagiri and Dharmapuri districts remained closed on Tuesday, the minister said.
Despite the Tasmac Managing Director holding talks with representatives of all employee unions and assuring that their demands would be addressed as far as possible, the shops were not reopened.
The minister said the Madras High Court had clearly stated both the Tasmac administration and employees shared equal responsibility in implementing the buy-back bottle scheme and that workers should extend full cooperation for its successful execution.
He further said the government had accepted the employees’ main demand and would immediately prepare a plan to hand over the collection of used liquor bottles to an external agency. An affidavit would also be filed before the High Court, assuring that the new system would be implemented fully by the end of June.
Once the new mechanism comes into force, Tasmac employees would no longer have to handle used empty liquor bottles under the present system, he assured. The minister appealed to all employees to respect the High Court order, trust the steps being taken by the administration for employee welfare, and return to work as usual from Wednesday.