HYDERABAD: More the merrier. As the clock struck midnight on Friday, a tipsy Telangana welcomed the New Year as liquor flowed on the streets like a floodtide, Omicron or no Omicron. The tipplers helped the state to create a record in earning revenue on liquor. According to sources, the state government billed 2,700 shops, including 400 in the GHMC limits, more than Rs 140 crore on a single day.
The shops procured 1.52 lakh cases of liquor and 1.48 lakh cases of beer which the denizens gulped. The government receives up to 90% of the total sale of liquor by way of taxes.
In December alone, the government had billed the shops a record Rs 3,500 crore as against the Rs 2,764 crore it did in the same month last year. For the entire month of December, the wine shops were billed for 40.26 lakh cases of liquor and 33.84 lakh cases of beer.
Telangana Wine Dealers’ Association president D Venkateswara Rao said: “What has been billed need not necessarily be the value of the liquor consumed. It may be true that stocks worth more than Rs 150 crore were sent to wine shops, but it is because they stock more liquor keeping in view the demand on holidays.”