Gzb earns ₹1,474 cr in liquor revenue, third highest in UP

As the Covid-19 pandemic brought lockdowns and restrictions and several people started working from home, the residents of Ghaziabad consumed the most Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL), beer and countrymade liquor in the 2021-22 financial year in the last five financial years, officials of the excise department said on Tuesday.

According to official figures of the district excise department, Ghaziabad residents consumed 28,800,961 bottles of beer, 13,018,372 bottles of IMFL and 16,490,025 litres of country-made liquor. The district also amassed a record revenue of ₹1,474 crore.

“The revenue earned from liquor in FY22 has been the highest in the last five years and we were also able to achieve about 99.4% of our target. The district also earned the third-most amount of revenue in Uttar Pradesh. Only Lucknow (₹2,068 crore) and Kanpur (₹1,534 crore) earned more revenue than Ghaziabad,” said RK Singh, district excise officer.

During the last five financial years, starting from 2017-18, the residents in the district consumed a total of 95,060,132 bottles of beer, 46,227,332 bottles of IMFL and 62,070,797 litres of countrymade liquor.

The department earned revenues to the tune of ₹714 crore in 2017-18 and the sales skyrocketed in FY21 and FY22 with revenues amounting to ₹1,059 crore and ₹1,474 crore respectively. “The revenue has been on the higher side during the past two financial years after the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. The sales are the highest in these two years. Thanks to better enforcement, we were able to curb instances of liquor smuggling from nearby states where prices are less,” Singh added.

Official figures also indicate that neighbouring Gautam Budh Nagar district earned the fourth-highest revenue in the state--₹1,346 crore--with the consumption of 28,763,347 bottles of beer, 11,168,744 bottles of IMFL and 15,180,614 litres of countrymade liquor in FY22.

In order to boost sales, the state cabinet on May 23, 2020, approved the Uttar Pradesh Excise (Settlement of Licences for Premium Retail Vends of Foreign Liquor) Rules, which mandates the sale of premium liquor brands in shopping malls and departmental stores.

The UP excise department in March 2020, also issued licences for the operation of microbreweries as part of the UP Brewery Rules, 2019.

“The sales have been encouraging but time was also lost during the pandemic. Otherwise, the sales would have been on a much higher side. At present, there are three microbreweries in Ghaziabad city,” said Madhur Gupta, who owns Cinnamon Kitchen in Indirapuram.

A craft brewery or microbrewery is a smaller unit of a large beer producing commercial manufactory.