Liquor is a money-spinning and corruption-prone business for both the industry and the Government. This phenomenon has led Punjab Government to go hi-tech to check tax evasion and thus implicitly prevent corruption on real-time basis.

Punjab’s Excise and Taxation Department (ETD) is planning to hire a multi-component surveillance system to remotely monitor movement of liquor from 16 distilleries, 22 bottling plants and three breweries located in the State.  

It believes the proposed project would enable it “to enhance revenue by having better control on the functioning of distilleries, bottling plants and breweries."

Under the Excise Rules, no liquor can move out of the plant without having a valid excise pass issued by the excise staff posted at the manufacture sites. Illegal movement of alcohol, however, does take place.  

The project envisages development of an integrated hardware and software solution for all the units for monitoring the movement of liquor across the State. 

ETD would slap heavy penalty on the project developer if there is any revenue leakage after the operation of the proposed project. 

It says: “If there is any illegal movement of liquor which has passed through the software system installed by the vendor and resulting into duty evasion by the distillery, then penalty equivalent to 300% of excise duty evaded will be imposed in the 1st instance.”

It adds: “If the offence is repeated, then the contract will be terminated without any notice and excise duty will be recovered with a penalty of 300% and EMD (earnest money deposit) will be forfeited.”

ETD headquarters at Patiala and its office in Chandigarh would do the remote monitoring with aid of closed circuit TV cameras and biometrics-controlled boom barriers installed at the units. 

The data will be transmitted directly from the units to ETD offices on real time basis. The backup record of video footage would be retained for 90 days. The staff would be able to view the operations of the plants from large TV screens installed at their offices.