Negligence by the Ganjam district excise department,has deprieved the state exchequer form a whooping excise duty amounting to over Rs 55 crores,what was detected by Accountant General, Odisha.A three member team of office of the principal accountant general, Bhubaneswar has detected the anomaly during their audit.The AG team checked the records of the district excise office for the five years from 2019-20 to 2023-24 and the irregularites detected.According to the inspection report no-16/2024-25,text check and general examination of accounts and record pertaining to the period covered under audit,which started from 5/6/2024 to 19/6/2024.During the last five years,five officer in charge of the district excise office,but did nothing to realise the excise duty of over Rs 55.87 crores on short lifted menimum guaranted quota(MGQ)from IMFL OFF shops for the year 2021-22 to 2023-24,the report said.As per the rule 34(3)to(8)of Odisha excise rules 2017,a MGQ of IMFL/Beer as determined by the govt for the years,should be guaranteed by the successful tendererbidder to lift for retail sale in the shops.The quantity fixed as MGQ shall be counted at the end of the year to ascertain the shortfall of the MGQ of the year.The licensee shall lift entire MGQ of country sprit,IMFL and Beer for the entire year or portion thereof as fixed by the state govt before the expiry of the term of license,the last day of March.Provided that(a)the excess quantity over MGQ drawn in previous months be adjusted against short drawn MGQ in subsequent months.(b)the excess quantity lifted in the entire year be adjusted in the MGQ keeping in view the total MGQ fixed for the year.(c)The collector,may wherever if he deems it necessary,permit the licensee to lift the short drawn MGQof any month other than the month of March in any subsequent month or months.The report further said,in case of default the excise duty on the deficit quantity of annual MGQ without prejudice to any other mode of recovery,shall be collected at the end of the year with a fine at the rate of ten percentum on the deficit amount and on failure to such fine the same shall be recovered as arrear of land revenue under the provision of odisha Public demand recovery Act.1962(Odisha Act I of 1963).The Odisha high court vide WPC no-9556 of 2023 ordered that shortfall MGQ of the previous years shall be spread over for the excise year 2023-24 along with the MGQ of the current year and not beyond that.Scrutiny of MGQ registers maintained by the officer in charge of excise stations and information furnished to Audit,it was noticed that license was issued in favour of 64 IMFL off shops and IMFL ON shops/hotels/Beer parlours licensees to run their shops for the year 2021-22 to 2023-24 by fixing the applicable MGQ for the current year along with the backlog quantity of short lifted liquor of the previous year.Out of the 64 shops,25 of the licensees have short lifted the MGQ of IMFL and similarly 4 licensees failed to lift the MGQ Beer.Thus ,the licensees were liable to pay the excise duty on the short drawn quantity of IMFL/Beer.The amount of ED on the short lifted quantity of liquor is calculated taking into the rates fixed by the govt for IMFL and Beer and the total ED realizable on short drawn MGQ of IMFL and Beer comes to Rs 55,87,76,357/-along with the fine at the rate of 10 percent.However,no action has been taken to raise demand and initiate certificate cases against the defaulter licensees till the audit was done,the report said.It further said that the Supt of excise(SE),Ganjam in its reply stated that compliance would be furnished after verification of relevant facts and records.The report also recommended the SE,Ganjam to ensure that demand notice for an amount of Rs 55.87 crore may be issued and entered into the DCB register under intimation to Audit.However,the excise office reportedly slept over the matter and now the defaulter licensees reportedly approched the Odisha high court.
