We have collected around Rs11,400 crore in state excise revenues, against the target of Rs11,500 crore," a senior state excise official told dna.
While the debt-ridden Maharashtra government is looking at mopping up additional revenues to boost its depleted coffers, the state excise department, which is among the largest revenue spinners for the exchequer, has marginally fallen short of its target. The department has missed its revenue target by Rs100 crore in the previous 2014-15 financial year.
"We have collected around Rs11,400 crore in state excise revenues, against the target of Rs11,500 crore," a senior state excise official told dna. Another official said the cyclical ups and downs in revenues, the economic downturn and agrarian distress, which affected liquor consumption and loss of excise duty due to smuggling of liquor from other states and union territories, have led to this fall.
He added that the decision to impose prohibition in Chandrapur, which has a huge working class population, including workers from coal mines and power plants, from April 1, would also affect the revenue collection in the present 2015-16 fiscal. However, supporters of the state government's decision to ban consumption and sale of liquor in the district located in Vidarbha, say the social and health benefits of the move far outweigh the loss of revenue from liquor sale.
Chandrapur, which has become the third liquor-free district in Maharashtra after Wardha and Gadchiroli, accounted for around Rs210 crore of the department's annual earnings in 2013-14.
In 2013-14, Maharashtra generated Rs10,537 crore state excise revenues and has a target to collect Rs13,500 crore in the 2015-16 financial year.
According to the state excise department's figures, wine sales rose by 14.83% in Maharashtra in 2014-15 to end at 58.05 lakh bulk litres as compared to 50.56 lakh bulk litres to the previous fiscal. Beer sales increased by 4.70% to 3,126.48 lakh bulk litres as against 2,986.09 lakh bulk litres in 2013-14, while the comparative figures for Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) were 1,737.18 lakh bulk litres compared to 1,615.06 (up by 7.56%). The rise in country liquor (CL) sales has been muted at just 3.31%, with the state consuming 3,323.34 lakh bulk litres in 2014-15 against 3,216.97 lakh bulk litres earlier.
The official said that of the state excise duty collections in 2014-15, IMFL sales accounted for the highest quantum at Rs4,112.10 crore, followed by CL at Rs2,056.60 crore and beer (Rs1,859.33 crore). Permits to consume and transport hard liquor and strong beer account for just around Rs2 crore in revenues. Wine has been given a tax holiday till 2021.
While prohibition was imposed in 1975 in Wardha, where Mahatma Gandhi's Sevagram ashram is located, Naxalite violence-affected and tribal-dominated Gadchiroli went dry in 1992.
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