Jammu, July 20: You may have heard about food adulteration, but Jammu and Kashmir government is struggling with unique type of counterfeit trade, the entry of spurious liquor in the market and the losses being incurred on this account.
 Officials said that past some years have witnessed a steep rise in the cases of adulterated liquor being detected by the enforcement agencies and the loss to the exchequer due to this goes in crores of rupees.
 To deal with the menace, the Excise and Taxation Department has decided to introduce tamper proof holograms on the bottles.
 For the purpose the department has submitted a detailed proposal to the government to get the approval for the same. Sources said that the concept has been borrowed from Punjab and Himanchal Pradesh, where the authorities are facing the menace of illegal distilleries.
 As per the new concept the temper proof multi-coloured holograms seals would be put on each bottle to enable easy detection of the counterfeit products.
 Deputy Excise Commissioner Manmohan Singh said, “We have submitted the proposal to the government and the step would help to ensure that quality liquor is sold in the market so that there is no revenue loss to the state and consumers are also safe”.
 Liquor consumption is showing increasing trend in J&K. “It is proving difficult for the department to keep a check on liquor adulteration because of the increased consumption. The problem is more in the rural areas”, said an officer.
 Pertinent to mention here that since past two years government has not issued any new liquor licences, but despite this the consumption, particularly that of beer has shown increased trend, which is also a big revenue generator for the state.
 As per the official figures, there are 226 liquor shops owned by private parties in the state. Of these, 135 are in Jammu city, 21 in Udhampur district and 40 in Kathua. Srinagar has 4, Baramulla one and Leh has two shops.
 Finance Ministry data shows that 11, 444, 94 cases of Indian made foreign liquor (IMFL) were produced in 2008-09 in the state, while this number increased to 14, 23,954 cases in 2009-10.
 As far as local liquor is concerned, 11, 23,112 cases were produced in 2008-09 and 13, 53, 505 cases in 2009-10. As many as 12, 44,969 cases of beer were produced in the state in 2008-09, while this number touched to 16, 10,558 cases in 2009-10.

Lastupdate on : Wed, 20 Jul 2011 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Wed, 20 Jul 2011 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Thu, 21 Jul 2011 00:00:00 IST