BENGALURU: Despite a bleak financial year, the State Excise revenue for 2020-21 has increased by 7.17 per cent in comparison to the previous financial year of 2019-20. The Department has collected Rs 23,131.28 crore revenue against a Budget estimate of Rs 22,700 crore for the year 2020-21, registering an increase of Rs 1,547.33 crore over the previous financial year. The Excise revenue collection for 2019-20 was Rs 21,583.95 crore against a Budget estimate of Rs 20,950 crore.
The financial gains are being pegged to the two-time increase of the Additional Excise Duty across all slabs of Indian Made Liquor (IML) in May last year, soon after government allowed the re-opening of retail liquor stores and MSIL stores to mop up an additional Rs 2,500 crore revenue.
F&B industry on razor’s edge
The Excise revenue collection, which showed a -99.92% decline in April 2020 due to the lockdown, had gained snail’s pace momentum in December last year with a marginal growth of 3.51% in comparison to the previous year after the government opened the Food and Beverage industry with stringent Covid protocols of limited seating among other restrictions.
According to the Department, while the Karnataka State Beverage Corporation Limited sold 600.92 lakh cases of IML during 2019-20, it could sell only 583.23 lakh cases in 2020-21, thus reflecting a -2.94% decline in comparison to previous year. Beer sales have been hit since the first lockdown in March last year, largely because of the Work From Home phenomenon. In 2019-20, the KSBCL had sold 289.60 lakh cases. Beer sales nosedived to 237.82 lakh cases the following year, registering a -17.88% decline. One case contains 8.64 litres of alcohol.
With the second wave of Covid, the F&B industry is on the razor’s edge. “Our business had gradually picked up since December. With a spike in Covid cases, we are again staring at empty tables and imminent doom. Our business is down by 35% over the last 10 days,” said the owner of a well-known chain of pubs.