Hyderabad: The Telangana government is taking ‘precautionary measures’ to ensure that liquor sales are not hit in the event that panchayat elections are held in February or March.
It asked all liquor shops to procure more stock in advance immediately to meet the demand during elections as there would be Election Commission restrictions once the poll schedule is announced.
The EC would have weekly and monthly mo-nitoring of stock data at liquor depots and compare it with the same period during the previous year and would not allow additional sales.
The government is worried that if liquor sales are hit towards the end of current financial year, it would result in huge financial loss. Liquor contributed over Rs 16,000 crore revenue to the exchequer.
TS Breweries Corp has sent circulars to all liq-uor shops asking them to stock material in advance to meet the election demand. Liquor shop owners were surprised at receiving such a circular. Official sources said this was done to ensure excise department meet the revenue target of Rs 16,500 crore for 2017-18 as it is mainstay of the government besides tax on fuel.
