Excise Dept moves to recover Rs 340 crore from liquor traders

In Punjab, where a majority of the liquor trade is indirectly controlled by politicians and officials, the Punjab Government has now decided to tighten the noose around the tax defaulters who collectively owe over Rs 340 crore to the state Excise Department.

The department has now initiated a process and already recovered Rs 5 crore, while the process is on to recover the complete pending amount from the defaulters.

After refusing to pay the licence fee for the vends allotted to them (majority for 2016-17), the “politically well-connected” liquor contractors of the state had earlier faced the music as the state Excise and Taxation Department had initiated auction proceedings against them, which were later deferred due to legal hurdles.

A senior official in the state government, privy to the developments, told The Tribune that in addition to blacklisting the liquor contractors defaulting on the amount, the process was on to recover the money from them. “We have already recovered Rs 5 crore and notices for another Rs 35 crore have been slapped against the defaulting contractors,” said the official.

Meanwhile, some liquor contractors said that with the mounting losses suffered by them, a majority of them were in no position to pay the licence fee and became defaulters. “In 2016-17 many contractors had to change their trade due to the losses,” they said.

Confirming the developments, Punjab Finance Minister Harpal Singh Cheema, who holds the excise portfolio, told The Tribune that a major chunk of this roughly Rs 350-crore defaulting amount, was pending against these contractors since 2016 when the SAD-BJP coalition ruled the state. “After clearances from various courts and tribunals, now we have been able to initiate the process to recover the money. We will attach and later auction properties of such defaulters in case they fail to clear the pending amount,” said Cheema.

Excise officials confirmed that pendency worth crores against defaulting liquor traders was from the Ludhiana excise division where over Rs 40 crore was pending, in addition to Patiala, Gurdaspur, Amritsar, Ferozepur, Tarn Taran, Fazilka, Moga, Muktsar, Faridkot, Bathinda and some other districts.

The Finance Minister further warned that “all files of the defaulters” irrespective of their political backing, would be opened and the “defaulting companies would have to deposit the amount”. “We will ensure every rupee defaulted by liquor traders is deposited in the state coffers,” Cheema said.

Punjab