The State Excise department is now planning to alter the system of labelling bottles and cases of Indian Made Liquor , from manual to automatic. The move will serve a dual purpose: of labelling more of bottles at one time, while making the system fool-proof.
The sale of Indian Made Liquor (IML) in Karnataka has hit a high, from 12 lakh cases (each case contains around nine litres of liquor) per month to 30 lakh, from July 1 this year, when the sale and consumption of arrack was banned in the State.
At present, bottles are manually labelled using adhesives which, in official parlance, are called Excise Adhesive Labels (EALs).
On Monday, the Marketing and Consulting Agency (MCA) — the suppliers of labels for IML bottles to the State Excise, along with the officials from the Department, and the Karnataka State Beverages Corporation Limited, organised a presentation for distillers on the new automatic labelling system.
Labelling machines
“We have asked distilleries to install the new labelling machines in their units. They have asked us to give them a month’s time,” said an Excise officer.
As of now, the Marketing and Consulting Agency provides the State Excise Department with 20-label sheets. But since the production of IML has shot up, they find the procedure tedious and time-consuming.
“They have asked us to give them 48-label sheets so that they can label the bottles at one go. One case contains 48 bottles of quarter-litre capacity. They also want the procedure to be mechanised - to make it faster, easier and safer,” said an MCA spokesperson.
“Automatic labelling of bottles will also help scanning of cases. It will capture the number of each sticker and give the details in two-D bar code. They have asked us to introduce a two-dimensional bar code, to hold more information about the batch number, source of liquor, distillery and capacity of the bottle. As of now, they have a single - dimension bar code, with limited information,” said the MCA spokesperson.
Illicit liquor
The new labelling system will also help control the menace of duplicate and illicit liquor, which is giving the department sleepless nights. The demand for cheap segment liquor has risen to an all-time high. In the last eight months, there has been an 89 per cent increase in IML duty and 69 per cent in additional excise duty, compared to sales for the same period in 2006.
To handle the boom in sales, the previous government granted permission to eight arrack manufacturing and sacheting units in the State to manufacture IML, after collecting a licence fee of Rs 34,50,000.
Two new units are yet to be commissioned, said an Excise officer.