Kolkata, June 20 (IANS) The West Bengal Finance Department has issued a notification making advance payments of all state excise-related duties mandatory for liquor manufacturers, breweries and bottling plants.

Technically, this means that, henceforth, all such units will have to pay the relevant state excise duties in full before any product is removed from the manufacturing company, brewery, or bottling plant concerned.

The crucial notification was issued just ahead of the presentation of the full state budget on the floor of the assembly by the new state Finance Minister, Swapan Dasgupta, a journalist-turned-politician, on June 22.

An insider from the state excise department, on strict condition of anonymity, said the new system had been introduced with the primary aim of sealing avenues of corruption in the collection of state excise and ensuring better revenue collection.

Incidentally, the system of advance payment of excise duties was in practice during the previous Left Front regime in West Bengal for 34 years from 1977 to 2011, first led by Jyoti Basu and then by Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee.

The same system was also followed for the first six years of the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress government from 2011 to 2017.

However, the law was altered in 2017, when the newly formed West Bengal Beverage Corporation Limited became the sole wholesale distributor of liquor in the state. Now, the new state government has decided to revert to the old system of advance payment to ensure transparency, seal corruption avenues and improve excise collections.

Economic observers feel that this notification, which will come into effect from June 25, is an important turning point in West Bengal’s liquor supply and distribution structure. “Its impact will be clearly seen in all aspects, from revenue collection to the financial management of distributors,” said a city-based economist.

–IANS

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