Tasmac running in loss despite huge sales, says RTI reply

The Tasmac, Tamil Nadu’s one and only liquor retailer and government’s cash cow, has made alcohol sales worth of Rs 2.83 lakh crore during a period of 14 years since 2004-2005 financial year, but has been an ailing organisation, if one goes by the accounts book.

Its ‘expenditure’ during the same period - 2004-05 to 2019-20 was pegged at Rs 2.87 lakh crore, says a RTI reply from Tasmac.

In the RTI reply, the officials seem to have deliberately avoided giving details of financial years 2009-10 and 2015-16, said activist M Kasimayan. It is not clear why the figures of those two years are not released by the Tasmac, he said.

If the sales figure of the missing years is also added, the people in Tamil Nadu could have easily gulped up more than Rs 3 lakh crore worth alcohol since Tasmac started retailing liquor, noted Kasimayan.

The last financial year for which the accounts are finalised is 2019-20 and that year the Tasmac had suffered a loss of Rs 72 crore, according to the RTI reply.

Tasmac had entered into the retail vending business by end of the year 2003. In the first financial year 2004-05, it made a profit of Rs 233 crore, the highest profit figure in the 14 years of data given by the Tasmac. The profit came to just Rs 1.43 crore in the next financial year 200506. From 2010-11 onwards for four years the company showed loss with the year 2012-13 showing maximum loss of Rs 104 crore, despite making a sale for Rs 24371 crore.

From the data given, the Tasmac has shown maximum sale of Rs 36752 crore and a profit of Rs 16 crore in the financial year 2018-19.

Tasmac, which was once managing 6,736 retail shops, has 5,425 shops as on the year 2021.