Minister Parimal Suklabaidya asks Excise officials to keep a strict vigil

GUWAHATI: State Excise, Fisheries and Forest and Environment Minister Parimal Suklabaidya reviewed the functioning of the Excise department in all districts through video conferencing on Saturday. He has instructed all concerned to exercise maximum vigil against any possible violation of the law and to continue to maintain vigorous drives to check and control all excise offenses.

The issues that were reviewed during the video conference were status of applications received by the districts for country spirit licenses as well as steps taken district officials for facilitating the opening of new country spirit shops in areas infested by illicitly distilled liquor; data showing consumption of country spirit and revenue generated from country spirit; the overall trend of consumption and revenue collection trend against the targets fixed for the financial year; district-wise detection of cases, arrests, seizure and prosecution in respect of illicit/duty evaded/smuggled liquor; status of action taken to control and curb storage and diversion of molasses for use in the distillation of illicit liquor; gearing up of enforcement drives against illicit and spurious liquor, etc.

Functioning of checkpoints in the designated places in the districts sharing inter-state borders for the purpose of checking and entering the details of permits in respect of consignments originating from or bound for Arunachal Pradesh; naka duty in all vulnerable places to intercept and seize illegal consignments originating from Arunachal Pradesh; status of detained and seized vehicles involved in transportation of illicit and duty evaded liquor and the status of cases submitted to the courts; intelligence inputs gathering by the district excise officials in respect of movement of liquor consignments suspected to be illegal and sharing of such intelligence inputs with all district officials concerned to facilitate detection and interception of consignments not found to be legal etc were also reviewed.

During the deliberations, it was informed by the officers concerned that the majority of the districts have been carrying out intensive drives against illicit/spurious liquor and molasses.

It also emerged that in several districts distillation and sale of illicitly distilled liquor as well as the trade of duty evaded and smuggled liquor is going on due to lack of proper monitoring and aggressive drives by the officials concerned, a press release said.

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