Haryana Minister of State for Excise and Taxation, Ghanshyam Saraf on Friday rubbished the allegations leveled by Congress MlA Karan Singh Dalal on irregularities in Excise collection as ill-founded and politically motivated.
Two days back, accusing few excise officials for causing revenue loss to the state exchequer by imposing “nominal” penalties against liquor firms, Karan Singh Dalal had sought a judicial probe in the matter. Estimating a loss of Rs 300 crore to the state exchequer by the alleged liquor mafia during the last financial year, legislator Dalal had also sent a memorandum to Haryana Governor Kaptan Singh Solanki in this regard.
Responding to the allegations, Saraf said that the BJP Government is working with full accountability and transparency and that Dalal is giving unrestrained and unverified statements to be in the news.
The Excise and Taxation Department is working excellently with zero tolerance to corruption, carrying out regular raids and taking action against the defaulters who are violating the rules of the department. From April 1, 2015 till today, the department has registered 11 cases of violation of rules, under which fine of over Rs3.19 lakh was imposed and recovered, he said.
The Minister said that the Department has imposed maximum fine on country made liquor since April 1 whereas very little fine was imposed earlier.
He added said that only 33 cases were registered by the previous government in 2013-14 and a fine of over Rs51.62 lakh was imposed. In 2012-13, 96 cases were registered and a fine of over Rs1.86 crore was imposed. Similarly, in 2011-12, 125 cases were registered and a fine of over Rs4.44 crore was imposed.
Saraf said that Congress MlA Dalal had given a statement that the present government is imposing less fine on the violators of rules whereas the facts tell a different story. According to the data of the previous government, maximum violations of rules were detected in the month of March from 2010 to October 2014 which done for formality sake.
Under the present government, the Department has auctioned contracts of liquor vends online which has netted 18.23 per cent more revenue from bids on liquor vends. The total revenue of the department is estimated to have increased from Rs3,400 crore to Rs4,500 crore, added the Minister.
The allegations leveled by the Congress MlA that the present government has increased the quota of liquor is completely false as contracts of liquor were allocated based on the quota fixed in 2010-11 and since 2010-11, there has been no increase in the quota, said Saraf.