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Cheers! Diwali sparkle ushers in ‘happy hour’ in Uttar Pradesh
In 10 days since November 1, liquor consumption touches ₹1400 crore in state, a 15% increase over the same period last year
It’s virtually a pre-Diwali ‘happy hour’ in Uttar Pradesh as guzzlers have stepped up their consumption of the heady brew with gusto in the festive ambience, much to the delight of the state’s excise department for whom festivities and the weather coincide to jack up revenues rather significantly from this period onwards.
Post Diwali, there will be Christmas in December and New Year followed by Holi in March and after which the stage will be set for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, all occasions when consumption peaks.
“In the past 10 days since November 1, liquor worth nearly ₹1400 crore has been consumed in the state, an increase of nearly 15% over the same period last year,” the state’s excise minister Nitin Agarwal said to HT.
Agarwal admitted that this five-month period from November to March is immensely beneficial from the point of view of meeting stiff excise revenue targets, set at ₹58,000 crore for the current fiscal.
This is the time when the sales go up both in country made and in high-end foreign liquor.
“We have noticed that sales have gone up across categories,” Agarwal said, adding that nearly 600 brands, including global ones, are registered in Uttar Pradesh. The excise department data points to this.
“In 2021-22, about 65 crore litres of country made liquor was consumed and the next fiscal (2022-23), sales of this brew went up by approximately 12 crore litres. The ongoing period will now help us cross the previous figure as already sales of 46 crore litres have been reported and the five-month push from now onwards will help us further,” an official said while requesting anonymity.
The sales from country liquor, mostly consumed by poor, makes up for about 45% to 50% of total revenue generated across the state, officials said.
If country-made liquor has its loyal client base, foreign liquor is the preferred choice of connoisseurs. In 2021-2022, nearly 26 crore bottles of foreign liquor found their way to crystal glasses of those who don’t mind paying a price for the good things in life.
“In 2022-23, nearly 27 crore foreign liquor bottles were bought and this year already 16 crore bottles have been sold out and the next five months would jack up sales further,” this official said.
The districts that regularly top the sale charts year after year include Noida and Ghaziabad ( ₹13- ₹14 crore daily), Agra ( ₹12- ₹13 crore each day), Meerut (around ₹10 crore ever day), Lucknow ( ₹10- ₹12 crore in a day), Kanpur ( ₹8- ₹10 crore per day) and Varanasi ( ₹6- ₹8 crore each day). But in this period sales go up rather uniformly even in those districts where business, otherwise, is rather sluggish.
“The excise policy runs from April 1 to March 31 and thus this five-month year-end consumption push helps us in catching up with the excise targets that keep going up annually,” an excise department official said.
Crackdown on illicit liquor has also contributed to rising sales, officials admit.
Proof of this are seizures and arrests made by the police in coordination with the excise department’s enforcement wing in just five days of the launch of the special enforcement drive from November 5.
“This special drive from November 5 to 9, is the fourth this fiscal and has resulted in 1841 cases being registered, 47,000 litres of smuggled liquor being seized and 624 people being nabbed and of whom 260 have been sent to jail,” the official said.
“In all national highways, we have toll plazas where we deploy checking teams for 24x7 surveillance. There are strict directives from chief minister Yogi Adityanath and excise minister Nitin Agarwal to curb liquor smuggling and crackdown on mafia who previously called the shots. The crackdown has thus helped us in meeting or nearing stiff excise revenue targets,” he added.
