CHENNAI: As it struggles to roll out the bottle buy-back scheme across the state to meet the Madras High Court’s final deadline of November 30, 2025, which had been extended multiple times in the last three years, Tasmac is mulling to rent around 1,500 shops to tackle the storage issues in rolling out the scheme.
A senior official told TNIE that most outlets do not have enough space, which has delayed the implementation of the scheme in all the districts. “Hence, we are preparing rent around 1,500 shops across the state to store empty bottles,” he said, adding that the district managers of Tasmac have been asked to identify such shops.
“The final number of such shops to be rented will be known once we receive the reports from districts,” he said.
Tasmac runs 4,829 liquor outlets across the state. Of these, according to Tasmac officials, the buy-back system has been introduced in about 1,800 shops in 20 of the 38 districts in Tamil Nadu. It may be recalled that Tasmac had informed the high court earlier this month that it has rolled out the scheme fully in 17 districts and partially in seven other districts.
The inadequate storage and shortage of staff to handle the bottle buy-back have been the major concerns raised by Tasmac staff, who have remained steadfast in opposing the implementation of the scheme until these issues are sorted.
Contending that most staff are already handling a lot of workload, they said that getting the bottle back from consumers, checking if it has any damage and paying them Rs 10 per bottle required additional manpower, particularly during peak hours.
The AITUC-affiliated Tasmac Employees Association has called for an indefinite strike from October 2, while the management has initiated negotiations with the association to give up the strike. N Periyasamy, former MLA and president of the association, said they have repeatedly told Tasmac in the recent months to appoint more staff to handle the buy-back system.
“Unless they agree to appoint staff, we will go ahead with the strike as planned,” he said. Tasmac should have studied the situation, analysed the additional space requirement and created necessary infrastructure before committing to implement the scheme across the state within the deadline, he added.
“Although this issue has been going on for three years, Tasmac has failed to even begin any such process,” he alleged. A senior official said while Tasmac was planning to address the storage problem, the organisation was not in a position to offer any commitment to increase the staff strength since it is a policy decision of the government.