Sale of beer highest in Haveri in 2020-21 financial year

HAVERI/HUBBALLI: The prolonged closure of bars and prohibition on sales of alcoholic beverages in the immediate aftermath of the outbreak of Covid-19 in the beginning of the 2020-21 financial year had raised fears among the officials in the excise department over their revenue targets being met.
However, sales have been anything but sluggish in some of the districts in North Karnataka. Haveri district, for instance, has registered record sales of beer across the state, with 96.1% of the stock being cleared in the recently concluded financial year. Kolar (94.4%), Chitradurga (90.7%) and Chikkaballapur (90%) have slotted in behind Haveri in second, third and fourth slots respectively.
Sources in the excise department attributed the impressive sales of beer in Haveri and districts other than Bengaluru Urban to the exodus of professionals across various sectors from the state capital, who subsequently returned to their home towns, once ‘work from home’ became the accepted norm.
TV Shaila, deputy commissioner of excise department, said that, as on February 21, 3.2 lakh boxes of beer had been sold in Haveri in the previous fiscal year as against 3.3 lakh boxes in 2019-20. However, Shaila said that, the district had not been able to secure the top spot in sales of Indian Made Liquor (IML), although sales had been impressive.
Although numbers were yet to pour in, Shaila said that, the district was likely to have surpassed 2019-20’s figures as on March 31. “We have checked illegal sale of liquor, and improved infrastructure for sales, which is one of the reasons for the spurt,” she said.
The sharp spurt in the mercury level last summer drove liquor sales, said a Haveri resident.