In its report, which was placed in the assembly on Saturday, the CAG said that the Odisha Excise Department in May 2020 imposed the Special COVID Fee (SCF), at the rate of 50% of the maximum retail price, on all foreign made foreign liquor, Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL), beer, wine and ready to drink beverages, sold in the state.
SCF was imposed in view of the expected loss of excise revenue, on account of the two months’ shutdown, as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
SCF was applicable on the alcoholic beverages, to be traded with effect from March 24, 2020, including the unsold stock lying with the retailers. To enforce this provision, excise field officials were instructed to verify the stock of the liquor shops, it said.
To examine the process of levy of SCF, the CAG intended to scrutinise 1,378 sales registers of 1,378 retail liquor shops functioning under 21 district excise offices. Out of these, 108 (7.84%) were not furnished to the audit.
The price of the liquor products depend on the brand and size (in ml) of the bottle. However, brand-wise and size-wise sale registers had not been maintained by the retail shops. The excise officers-in-charge of the retail shops had not enforced maintenance of such data.
Hence, without maintaining the brand-wise and size-wise registers, it was not possible to levy the exact amount of SCF applicable to each retailer, based on the closing stock, as on March 24, 2020, the audit pointed out.
The closing balances, from the manually maintained sale registers, as on March 24, 2020, had not been collected, prior to the reopening of the retail outlets. Thus, the sales registers, had not been thoroughly examined and verified by the excise OIC, prior to levy of SCF.
The CAG estimated that 1,27,21,915 liquor bottles (whiskey, rum, vodka, brandy and beer) had been reported as having been sold in excess of the normal sales trends, by 716 licensed retailers, prior to the levy of SCF.
“Due to this irregular reporting of excess sales, through manipulation of the sales registers, there had been an estimated loss of Rs 75.07 crore, towards levy and collection of SCF,” it said.
The audit hinted at the possibility of collusion between the licensed retailers and the excise in-charge officers concerned.
It is of the view that the acts of omission and commission, which resulted in loss of government revenue, were sufficiently egregious, as to warrant initiation of disciplinary action against the excise officers concerned.
While accepting the above observations of the CAG, the Excise Commissioner (in April 2023) said non-furnishing of sales registers to audit was a serious matter and the superintendents of excise concerned had been instructed to issue show cause not only to the licensees but also to the excise officers concerned for such non-submission.
The commissioner had also ensured that follow-up action would be taken against the licensees and erring officers following due process and all possible steps would be taken for realisation of government revenue, the report said.
