200 Tasmac elite shops to open in Tamil Nadu, 25 more in city

Accordingly, Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation (Tasmac) is set to collaborate with big shopping malls in major cities like Chennai, Coimbatore, Madurai, Salem and Tirunelveli.

A senior Tasmac official told DT Next that at present, there are 21 elite liquor shops functioning in Chennai alone. “We have already entered into an agreement with VR Mall in Anna Nagar and Kasi Arcade in KK Nagar to set up elite shops for customers,” he added.

He also said that talks were on with another 100 owners of shopping malls across important cities including Chennai. “Imported liquor such as brandy, whiskey and rum will be available in these shops,” he said, adding, that apart from hard liquor, imported beer will also be available in these outlets.

Pointing out that each elite shop will have more than 50 foreign liquor brands, the official said that the area of each shop would be around 500 square feet so that all the brands are well displayed for the customers.

“Liquor will also be procured from the existing 11 Indian Made Foreign Spirit manufacturing units, seven beer manufacturing units and one wine manufacturing Unit in Tamil Nadu,” he said, adding “customers could also place bulk orders from elite shops.” A customer could purchase two cases of hard liquor and same quantity of beer.

The Tasmac official also admitted that the government decided to open these elite shops after it suffered huge revenue loss in liquor sales in 2018-19 after closing about 3,000 liquor shops along the highways following the Supreme Court order. “The proposed 200 elite liquor shops is expected to generate a revenue of more than Rs 900 crore per year,” he stated. According to him, as on March 2019, Tasmac has 43 Indian Made Foreign Spirits depots, 3,866 retail vending shops and 1,456 bars attached to these retail vending shops. At present the total revenue of liquor sales in Tamil Nadu stands at Rs 26,794.11 crore.