Come June 25, the State Excise department will set up a control room to monitor enforcement and receive complaints and information on illicit and non-duty-paid liquor in Bangalore district.

The control room will be set up at the office of the Deputy Commissioner (Revenue). The dedicated phone number will be announced in the next couple of days through media, said the DC-R, Mr M A Sadiq.

The objective of having a control room is to monitor arrack ban and manufacture and consumption of illicit liquor in the district. The ban on arrack, as per government order, comes into force on July 1.

The Department is also planning to set up helpline in all district headquarters in the near future for those wanting to lodge complaints related to excise violations, said officials who supervised the raid, conducted by police, Excise and Revenue officials.

Mr Sadiq told reporters that during a day-long raid at Adigarakalahalli (Anekal taluk), 40 km from here, around 50,000 litres of wash -- raw ingredients like rotten jaggery, water, batteries, navasagar and arlekai, used to activate fermentation, and stored in barrels buried in fields -- was destroyed.

Wash is fermented for a few days and then distilled in crude plants. “The wash destroyed was worth around Rs 4 lakh. We’ve also seized 150 litres of illicitly distilled liquor (ID) seized and three persons, including one woman, have been arrested by the police,” said Excise Joint Commissioner (Enforcement) Ramakrishna.

Notorious ‘hub’
Adigarakalahalli is notorious as an ID centre. “Almost the entire village, of around 400 houses, is involved in the illegal activity for the last four decades now. Their biggest market is Tamil Nadu, and then Bangalore, where around 2,000 litres of ID liquor is sold in slums by the bootleggers on a daily basis,” said one official.

Though the Excise, with the help of the police, has been raiding the village routinely, they have not been able to end the menace. “That’s because we could not find out the land owners. Now the Revenue department has stepped in. We’ll take stringent action against the bootleggers and even those on whose land these ID centres exist,” said Mr Sadiq.

Kingpins at large
The kingpins of the racket - Gate Akbar, Sugana Babu and Sunai John - are absconding. “We’ll track them down and book them under the Goonda Act because there are lot of cases pending against them,” he added.

In view of the arrack ban, the enforcement will be stepped up and each range inspector will be asked to handle a specific number of Indian Made Liquor (IML) shops. There are 48 ranges in Bangalore district.

“The Excise inspectors will have to file their weekly report in a format. This will be reviewed by deputy commissioners. We’ll also seek NGOs’ help to create awareness on the ills of drinking among people,” said Mr Sadiq who added that there’s bound to be a spurt in ID liquor.

“We need to keep a vigil on bootleggers and any smuggling of methanol, which largely comes in from Maharashtra,” he added. Methanol is so poisonous that it can be lethal if consumed.