DAINIK NATION BUREAU
Uttarakhand state excise department has made dent of Rs 350 crore to the state exchequer. This has been revealed in Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report, which has been tabled in the monsoon session of vidhan sabha on Thursday.
In which they have pointed that around Rs 350 crore financial irregularities have revealed in state excise department. Coincidentally these embezzlement has happened in three distilleries plants of the state. These three plants situated in Bazpur of udhamsinghnagar district, luxar of haridwar district and Kuwanwala of Dehradun district.
The department did not impose fines worth of Rs 346.53 crore due to non adherence of environmental norms by the distilleries. Which led to the manufacturing of alcohal during rainy season and production over and above the daily installed capacity. They were not achieving norms of minimum production, fermentation and distillation efficienciy prescribed in the rules and loss of total reducing sugar and molasses during transit resulted in loss of excise revenue of Rs 2.67 crore. They failed to impose duty worth of Rs 2.46 crore on higher content of alcohal than prescribed. The incorrect allowance of wastage on redistillation and adjustment of license fee of bonded warehouse foreign liquor are other factors which led to the loss of excise revenue.
As per the uttaranchal excise act-2002, the state excise department is accountable for the levy and collection of duties and fees on production, manufacture, possession, storage, transport, purchase and sale of liquor. Distilleries are licensed units where alcohal is produced mainly from fermenting and distilling molasses obtained as a byproduct during the manufacturing of sugar.