Chennai: Perhaps 2018 may ring pleasant chimes to anti liquor campaigners as Tamil maxim goes: Thai piranthal vazhi pirakkum (as Tamil month Thai dawns, there will be a way for prosperity in life). The Tamil Nadu Tasmac Bar & Building Owners Association has threatened to close down the bars and ask Tasmac to recall its stock, if the association demands were not met.
Tasmac has increased the upset price for running bars from 2.5 per cent to 3 per cent and till the previous fiscal, the upset price was calculated on the average monthly sale of a year recorded in the liquor shop attached to a bar. But this norm was tweaked this year following a court order, wherein bidders have to pay 3 per cent of the monthly sale. "The move will make us pay a hefty sum of about '1.1 lakh including taxes. This would only corrode our business and render us impossible to pay” says N. Anbarasan, association president.
Speaking to this correspondent, he said the owners running bars have protested the move and sought the authorities to scale down the sum to Rs. 65,000. "This will help us… if the government declines to accept our demand, then we have no other option left other than to close down our bars and use the premises for some other business. Also, we may ask Tasmac to take back its stock,” Mr Anbarasan said. On Saturday, the association members met and discussed the issue.
The Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation Limited (Tasmac) had shut the bars attached to liquor outlets across the state, earlier this month, after the annual license for running these bars expired. Though the state-owned marketing corporation floated tenders for operating bars, there were a few takers as the upset price for bidding facilities was hiked. The corporation is likely to come out with fresh tenders on Dec. 28. When contacted, Kirlosh Kumar, MD, Tasmac, said the board which earlier fixed the upset price at 3 per cent, brought it down to 2.5 per cent and later to 2.4 per cent. "The percentage is decided by the board," he emphasised.
In November this year, while dismissing a batch of petitions challenging the tender notice of Tasmac, the Madras high court had said the argument that the volume of sale in the bar alone should be taken into consideration and not the turnover in the retail vending shop was a plea to be rejected, as there was no right to vend liquor on the premises termed "bar" and it was only a facility offered for persons who purchase liquor from the retail vending shop and would desire to consume the same in the facility, adjacent to the retail vending shop. The volume of sales calculated based on the sales turnover of the shop was just and proper, justice M. Chandran had said.
