Taming of TASMAC
M.G.Devasahayam [Former Excise & Taxation Commissioner of Haryana)
August 5, 2015
When one looks at the unresponded public outcry in Tamil Nadu against TASMAC liquor these poignant verses in Bob Dylan’s famous song “Blowin’ in the Wind” rings in one’s mind:
“How many times can a man turn his head, pretending he just doesn't see?
How many ears must one man have before he can hear people cry?
How many deaths will it take till he knows that too many people have died?”
Why does TASMAC-an innocuous acronym-symbolise so much pain and anguish to the people? Why is it that the state government is not responding?Therein lay the story of the vice-like grip of TASMAC over successive governments in the statemaking the slow-poisoning intoxicant it supplies an essential commodity for 30% of people like fire, police and milk if one goes by a recent judicial pronouncement by the Madras High Court! That makes over two crore adult/adolescent population of Tamil Nadu as liquor addicts!
First, a recap of TASMAC. In 1983 the then chief minister MG Ramachandran formed two corporations-one for wholesale marketing of liquor and another to manufacture it. The marketing arm was called Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation (TASMAC) and the manufacturing arm was named Tamil Nadu Spirit Corporation (TASCO). Rationale was to “provide cheap and good quality liquor for those amongst the poor classes who consume."By 1987, TASCO had been abandoned and private companies took over liquor manufacture.
In November 2003, the then chief minister J Jayalalithaa gave TASMAC the monopoly to buy liquor from manufacturers and sell it to consumers. The stated objective was “to completely eliminate the sale of contraband, spurious liquor by organized groups and cartels that affect the health of the liquor consuming public”. TASMAC took off and prospered with its revenues skyrocketing from Rs. 3800 crores in 2003-04 to nearly 30,000 crores in 2014-15 with around 7000 sales outlets located all over the state.
These outlets sell a liquid-spirit called IMFL, which is hard liquor-whisky, brandy, gin, rum-manufactured in the country. It is alcohol produced during the process of redistribution of rectified spirit after addition of chemicals and treatment by activated carbon. Alcohol for human consumption is called potable spirit that should conform to quality standards laid down under law. The maximum strength permitted is 75 degrees proof (London) equivalent of 42.8% alcohol by volume (ABV). Rectified spirit, produced from sugarcane molasses using conventional distillation process, has an ABV of 95.6% and if consumed in raw form can burn out the intestines.
Of late the quality, particularly the ABV of IMFL being peddled by TASMAC has become suspect. On this TASMAC has been secretive. It took Madras High Court to intervene in a PIL recently and order quality check of liquor sold in its outlets. Earlier the sample of a brandy variety had 46% ABV when tested in a Laboratory as against the prescribed standard of 42.86%. It also had sediments in it which could be injurious to health.
The credibility, quality and ABV standard of hard liquor sold in TASMAC vends raise serious concerns due to certain incriminating factors. First and foremost, over a period of time large pan-Indian manufacturers of IMFL who by necessity has to maintain stringent quality and ABV standards have been edged out by TASMAC replacing them with products from local distilleries owned by bigwigs of Tamil Nadu’s ruling and opposition parties. For the latter money-making and not quality is the main motive.
As of now TASMAC sells a mind-boggling 211 varieties/brands of hard liquor produced in eleven distilleries. The procurement process and methodology adopted by TASMAC officials is ridden with favouritism and corruption as revealed in an Economic Times investigative report (January11, 2015): “There is a Purchasing Committee within TASMAC that places the orders and deals with liquor manufacturers. The liquor goes from manufacturer to 41 depots across the state…From these depots, liquor is sent to retail outlets…If a company tells TASMAC officials that they will pay anything between Rs 25 and Rs 50 per case (48 bottles), a deal is struck…Once orders are placed, the liquor goes from that company to the depots…Because this company has paid bribes, the liquor produced by this firm is forced on retailers." Retail managers admit that some ‘vague brands’ are forced on them thereby killing quality brands and replacing them with sub-standard ones.
In such a situation there is no guarantee that ABV standards are being maintained. Cost of this liquor is dependent on the distilling process and the purity of the final product that comes out. The more impure the liquor, the lesser the cost. Purchase price of the most popular ‘quarter’ bottle (180 ml) brandy ranges from Rs. 100/- to Rs. 200/-. It is almost certain that the cheapest brand of brandy/whisky will have ABV much higher than the prescribed standard of 42.86%. Revenue maximization being its sole objective, TASMAC has no concern for quality. There is hardly any testing facility for the consumers and the lone state-owned Kings Institute accepts only selective samples from the manufacturers.
TASMAC’s criminal lack of concern for public health is revealed from this passage from ET’s investigative report: “Twenty eight-year-old Parthiban stops by the local ‘wine shop’, which despite the moniker sells anything but wine, in his autorickshaw. He is in a hurry and asks for the ‘special’-two ‘cuttings’ of a new brand of alcohol locally called ‘Andhra Packet’, a small pouch of spurious liquor costing Rs 20/- each. It was once sold surreptitiously, but has found its way into alcohol retail outlets run by the state government.” One ‘cutting’ of this spurious stuff is enough to make you ‘fly like a rocket’. And many people take two!Being unprocessed rectified spirit with very high ABV it could ‘inflame’ the stomach and severely impact on the brain. Added to this are deep-rooted corruption and unfair practices leading to TASMAC posting a loss of over Rs 100-crore in 2012-13!
TASMAC ‘quarter’ addicts earning Rs. 200/- to 400/- a day have to shell out half their earnings on arasanga sarayam(government liquor). This has shattered the economy, livelihood and health of the low-earning echelons of Tamil society driving them into mendicancy and dependence on charity and freebies given by the state from the very money drained out of these ‘lesser children of God’. The state government has failed to achieve the core objectives-providing cheap and good quality liquor for those amongst the poor classes who consume, eliminating spurious liquor and protecting the health of the liquor consuming public-of establishing TASMAC and handing over to it the monopoly of entire liquor sales.
In the event there is no justification for this leviathan to continue. To start with, in the interest of public health and welfare of the poor, TASMAC should cease and desist from selling hard liquor in its retail vends. There are many healthy and prudent ways to make up the revenue loss and that should not be a constraint. Indeed as Bob Dylan sings: “the answer is blowing in the wind.”