Tax sops for liquor manufacturers with a rider

Notwithstanding his growing clamour for nationwide prohibition, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has doled out sops for those who are willing to manufacture liquor in Bihar, but sell the beverages outside the state.

Such liquor manufacturing units will no longer have to pay taxes on either export of the product or pay a bottling fee. This was decided when the Nitish government, at its Cabinet meeting, waived all taxes on liquor manufacturing units and decided to extend the same benefits to all those who are willing to set up their plants. The only condition is that they will have to strictly sell their product outside Bihar, which became a dry state since the beginning of this fiscal.

With this tax exemption, the state government is likely to incur a loss of Rs 7 crore, while it will help the nine existing units engaged in manufacturing Indian-made foreign liquor (IMFL) tide over the crisis ever since Bihar implemented prohibition.

“The decision to dole out sops to liquor manufacturing units was taken as it will reduce the chances of unemployment. Otherwise, the closure of such units in the changed environment would have affected hundreds of families,” said Bihar’s Commercial Taxes Minister Bijendra Yadav.

According to information sought under RTI, Bihar’s revenue has not completely dried up ever since the state was declared a dry State on April 1, 2016.