Plum postings in the excise and prohibition department in the state are literally “sold”, so lucrative are the pickings in the form of bribes for these officers.
Probes by Anti-Corrup-tion Bureau have found that the price tag depends on the district. For example, to get posted as a excise deputy commissioner in Prakasam, Guntur and Nellore districts, the price tag is Rs 40 lakh.
These are the three top-rated districts followed by Krishna, East Godavari, West Godavari and Visakapatnam districts where the same posts are valued at Rs 30 lakh.
In the Telangana region, the top-rated districts are Warangal, Nizamabad and Ranga Reddy. As the ACB’s ongoing probe has found, there is an unholy nexus between the liquor syndicates and excise and police officials.
These officials have to overlook various illegalities and violations of licence conditions by the syndicates, for which they receive a regular and well defined bribe every month.
In a document related to liquor syndicate owner Ch. Santosh Reddy that ACB unearthed, bribe entries were clearly made.
Rampur Wines paid Rs 45,000 on November 20, 2011, to the Warangal deputy excise commissioner, Mr A. Narasimha Rao, and Rs 50,000 on November 1, 2011 to the excise superintendent, Mr Panchakshari.
