On the lines of feni of Goa, the Jharkhand Government is exploring the prospects of making exotic wine out of mahua, a forest produce found in adequate quantity all across the State.
Excise and Prohibition Department Secretary Satyendra Singh, while counting on achievements of the department in the last one year at Suchna Bhawan, also added that online application for auctioning of retail outlets of wine shops will be invited from the next financial year.
“On the lines of feni, prepared in Goa out of State’s staple produce cashew, we are also mulling on producing an exotic wine out of mahua, which is found in abundance in Jharkhand,” said the Secretary.
Efforts are currently being made to overcome technical hiccups in this regard, he added.
Singh said, “Though, we lag behind in consumption of liquor than the two neighbouring States — Bihar and Chhattisgarh — we are far ahead of them in terms of per capita consumption of beer in Jharkhand.”
In order to provide quality product and increase revenue in the State, foreign made liquor, wine and medium liquor have also been made available in liquor shops from September last year. Incidentally, foreign made liquor, wine and medium liquor were made available in the markets in Jharkhand a month ahead of the announcement made by the neighbouring State to ban liquor in Bihar.
Singh added that since the primary objective of the department was revenue collection, it aims at collecting revenue of over Rs 1,200 crore this year. “Current figure of revenue collection of the excise department till January, 2016
was Rs 671 crore which is 20.4 per cent more than the last year,” said the Secretary.
For the first time in the State a plan fund of Rs 36,98,91,500 has been created under which, construction work of Excise Building has been started at Kanke Road. It is also having a provision of excise laboratory in it, said Singh.
Besides revenue collection, facility for online supervision of bottling plant through CCTV cameras is being developed in the State, he said.
“In a bid to make the department fully computerised, computers, laptops and other electronic gazettes have been made available to all excise offices so that issue of permits and other regulatory works could be done online,” said Singh.
In order to check sale and transportation of illegal liquor in the State, a task force has also been formed under the leadership of Deputy Commissioner of respective district, which is quite functional across the State, he said.
Also, the department issued two mobile numbers - 8002660055 and 9431392298 on which complains related to sale of liquor could be lodged.