KAKINADA: Liquor in retail in erstwhile East and West Godavari districts is allegedly being sold at prices that are ₹20 to ₹40 higher than the maximum retail price (MRP) per bottle depending on its brand.
This is particularly so at the mushrooming belt shops (unauthorised outlets) in villages.
Following protests by liquor shop owners that they are not getting enough returns on their investment, AP government had issued a GO hiking the price of a bottle by ₹10. Yet, shop owners complain their returns are low.
Liquor shop owners say that when the government issued notification for allotting shops, it offered 20 per cent commission.
However, the commission turned out to be only 12 per cent, which is now 14 per cent. Besides, the shop owners say they have to pay hefty bribes demanded to officials of the Excise department for picking up their stocks. Excise officials have even gone on to fix an amount payable by a shop.
The retailers disclosed that they have to pay monthly ₹1 lakh to the Excise department, ₹50,000 to respective police stations and send amounts to some of their area’s people’s representatives.
Answering a query, one of the shop owners told Deccan Chronicle that if they refuse to pay, officials get their shops raided and book cases. Under the circumstances, they are forced to collect a limited amount more than the MRP and also run belt shops.
In the interim, the National BC Sankshema Sangham state convener Chollangi Venugopal accused the state government of cheating BCs in allotment of liquor shops. Further, the shops that have been allotted to BCs are incurring losses due to the bribes that they have to pay.
“Unless a shop owner pays the bribe money, officials are not sending liquor crates to the outlet,” Venugopal alleged, citing the example of a liquor shop at Divili.
Amid all this, sources said Deputy Chief Minister K. Pawan Kalyan has instructed officials to ensure that liquor is not sold over MRP.
Following this, in the first week of February, district collector S. Shan Mohan and superintendent of police G. Bindu Madhav warned liquor shop owners against the MRP rule and warned that stringent action will be taken against those shops violating the rule.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: deccanchronicle.com
