Chennai
The air and noise pollution in the city was within permissible limits and the Greater Chennai Corporation generated at least 15 tonnes lesser garbage, while the fire and rescue services received fewer calls than last year. If one were to go by the revenue mopped up by the Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation (Tasmac) during the weekend, a large portion of funds meant for crackers probably went to guzzle booze.
This Deepavali, the contribution to the exchequer through Tsamac surpassed Rs 450 crore. The sale was an all-time high. Previous year’s liquor sales during Deepavali was just a little over Rs 300 crore as the festival fell on a weekday.
A Tasmac official told DT Next that it had set a revenue target between Rs 400 crore and Rs 470 crore through liquor sales by bringing more brands for the consumers.
He said that the average daily revenue for Tasmac, the monopoly liquor retailer in the State, was between Rs 90 crore and Rs 100 crore. “On weekdays, the liquor sales will be about Rs 90 crore and it touches Rs 100 crore on weekends,”he said.
“This year, we sold liquor worth Rs 153 crore on Saturday and Rs 185 crore on Sunday,” he said. As Monday was also a public holiday, the sale was about Rs 100 crore till 6.30 pm and the sales will touch Rs 130 crore by the time of closure of outlets (10 pm), he added.
“Taking three days into consideration, the total sales of liquor will be between Rs 465 crore to Rs 468 crore”, he said.
Tipplers who enjoyed an extended holiday from Saturday had more choices this year as the government had made arrangements to sell around 100 brands, besides selling varieties of tin beer.
Giving further statistics on the brand-wise sales, a Tasmac official said that brandy sale topped the list with most of the population consuming it. The total sale of brandy contributed to around 80 per cent of the sale and whiskey to 15 per cent.
“Gin, which was the least preferred brand in the State, contributed only about 2% of the total sales,” the official said.
He pointed out that extra employees were deployed in many liquor outlets situated inbusy areas of the State, including Chennai.
Stating that the average beer sale is around 70,000 cases on normal days, the official said that one lakh beer cases were sold each day from Saturdaytill Monday.
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