Chennai: Tipplers in Tamil Nadu kept their ‘tradition’ and drowned deeper this Deepavali, downing twice their usual daily dose this Wednesday. The state-owned Tasmac shops sold booze worth Rs 135 crore on the festival day, which is “actually a little over double the average Wednesday sales for us”, said a senior Tasmac employee.
If that should trigger joy in his accounting mind, that’s not happening as he produced another piece of “a very interesting and disturbing sales graph”.
There’s a steep 20 per cent fall in the Tasmac sales this Deepavali compared to last year’s festival of lights— despite the government raising the various liquor costs from last Friday (October 13).
“We had sold liquor worth Rs 255 crore last Deepavali but could manage only Rs 240 crore this year”, he told Deccan Chronicle. He explained that the festival sales take into account the transactions during the festival eve plus the day of the festival.
Tasmac ran 6,270 shops across the state last year but the number has come now to around 5,000, thanks to the Supreme Court ordering closure of shops on the highways and the public agitations against the relocation of the ‘affected’ shops. The closure/relocation of highway shops did not dampen the spirits of the kudimagans as their consumption graph only saw a steady climb.
A natural corollary of this would be an increase in the Tasmac revenue this Deepavali as compared to last year’s festival season, but it did not happen. “We saw a 20 per cent drop this Deepavali and you will be shocked if I explain why”, said a Tasmac source.
“With Amma (Jayalalithaa) in office, the police enforcement was quite effective last Deepavali and prevented large-scale smuggling from the neighbouring states. There was fear of punihment among the men manning the check-posts,
but now things are different. You may draw your own conclusion”, said the source.
Another state official said, “There is considerable increase in inter-state smuggling due to price increase here. Also, some popular brands have disappeared from Tasmac shelves”.
