Many usher in a sober New Year as IML, beer sales see big drop

Restrictions on New Year’s Eve celebrations hit the liquor and beer sales, as a result of which tipplers entered 2021 sober.

Excise Department data shows that the sale of Indian Made Liquor (IML) was hurt the most compared to beer sales, which are measured in terms of carton boxes sold (12 bottles per box). Officials admitted that the sale was not great even on December 30, as they pointed out that the sale had come down by one lakh boxes.

In 2019, tipplers consumed 1.26 lakh of IML on December 30 and 79,000 boxes on December 31. In the outgoing year, the IML sold on those two days stood at 1.06 lakh boxes. Beer sales fell by 36,000 carton boxes.

Even the data for the whole week did not match up to the 1.33 lakh boxes sold during the last two days of December 2019, officials revealed.

Unexpected fall

“We’re happy that the celebrations were peaceful. The restrictions in view of the pandemic were welcome. But we didn’t expect such a steep drop in sale,” an excise department official told DH.

Officials hoped for better sales based on trends in the last few months when the department’s revenues rose dramatically to indicate a rise in consumption.

The lockdown had hit revenue collections so badly that the department began with a meagre Rs 1.06 crore, which paled in comparison with the Rs 1,302 crore collections in April 2019. The surge in sales in the following months, however, enabled officials to reduce the deficit rapidly.

“We were at -99.9% growth which came to 1.16% in December. We had earlier estimated a loss of about Rs 650 crore this financial year compared to the previous year. Going by the trend, we are positive that we will cross our target in the next three months,” said a senior official.

Officials believe they will soon cross the Rs 22,700 crore fixed for 2021 if the growth continues at this rate.