The Excise Department has recommended the installation of a high security label press under its full control and produce a Hologram Security Label to ensure utmost credibility of IMFL supplied through the outlets of the Kerala State Beverages Corporation (KSBC), according to Excise Minister K Babu.
The master dye of the High Security Hologram will be secured in the custody of the State Excise Commissioner.
The Excise Minister informed the Assembly on Tuesday that changes in the design and features of the hologram will be resorted from time to time to make replication of labels impossible. High Security Labelling has become imperative as instances of seizure of fake labels is being reported on and off from various parts of the state. The Minister was replying to a submission raised by T N Pratapan, who had pointed out that in last week,314 hologram stickers and 135 labels were seized from Erumeli. Pratapan said that the master dye of the hologram was in private hands now and the implications were quite understandable, especially when reports of spurious liquor bottles bearing fake stickers with and without the connivance of IMFL manufacturers were pouring in. The Minister said that after the inception of KSBC in 1984,IMFL bottles were bearing only a normal security label.
From 2003, a holgraphic security label was introduced,with C-Dit being entrusted with the production. At present,the label has to be pasted in 60 crore IMFL bottles annually. “When a case of IMFL liquor is sold without the label,the revenue loss of the State Government is an approximate Rs 3,000,” he noted. The CAG has given many recommendations to rectify the legal anomalies and security lapses in the printing of the holograms,after taking strong exception to the finding that C-DIT had outsourced its production to a private agency in clear violation of the agreement with the KSBC. Reports suggest that labels have been found missing on many occasions from the Aluva,Kottayam and Nedumangad ware houses. It had also been detected that labels bearing the same numbers and wrong serial numbers were being printed. There were also allegations that hologram labels were being printed in places outside the state. The Minister said that the hologram facility, proposed under the Excise Department, would make use of the ‘track and trace’ technology. He said 80 posts will have to be created to ensure security in the printing press and 23 ware houses of KSBC.