Nellore: Wine shops have been fleecing the tipplers despite heavy penalties being imposed for charging above the the maximum retail prices (MRP). Liquor outlet owners dare customers to go ahead and complain whenever questions are raised on MRP.
Though all the liquor shops turn a blind eye to the MRP in SPSR Nellore district, excise department has found only 12 erring liquor shops and collected ' 14 lakh compounding fee since July this year. Which clearly indicates the laxity of the department which made a whopping '130 crore license fee from 339 shops for 2014-15, the highest in AP.
License holders have been justifying the rates being charged citing huge investment, meager trade margin and demands from excise department for bribes on regular basis. The liquor shop licensees allege that the trade margin was brought down to18 per cent from 22 to 26 per cent in the past and it was not enhanced despite frequent increase in liquor prices.
On condition of anon-ymity a licensee said that excise staff collects not less than Rs 1000 bribe on the pretext of inspection by some squad or other at regular intervals.
Recently a middlemen representing higher officials of excise allegedly collected huge sums from the bar owners for installing solar power system in excise office, according to a bar owner. He sarcastically said that entire state can have solar power with the amount they contributed.
In addition to excise, the licensees have to grease the palms of those manning the distribution depot of And-hra Pradesh Beve-rages Corporation Ltd also.
“The workers used to charge Rs 2 for loading and unloading a carton of liquor before. It has been increased to Rs 5 now and office staff has a share of it,” a liquor outlet owner said.
When contacted exc-ise superintendent Dr K. Srinivasulu struck down the allegations related to their department. "The license holders are adapting irregularities to realise huge sums they invested in the business and blaming us for taking action for violations,” he said.
