Overview
- The Assembly Secretariat, which issued directions Thursday, told the excise and finance departments to file an action taken report by January 31, 2027, and sent formal letters to Excise Minister Rekha Gupta and Finance Principal Secretary Ashish Chandra Verma.
- The House adopted the Public Accounts Committee’s second report based on a CAG audit that found gaps across licensing, pricing, enforcement, and quality control, with major risks to revenue, governance, and public health.
- The audit cited ₹890 crore lost by not re‑tendering surrendered liquor shop licences under the 2021–22 policy and ₹144 crore from a licence‑fee waiver, contributing to the estimated ₹2,026.91 crore hit.
- The review found the ESCIMS tracking system leaned on “stock take sold” counts and had many unaccounted barcodes, while the Excise Intelligence Bureau tool was dysfunctional and underused.
- The PAC urged fast rollout of an e‑Abkari portal with track‑and‑trace, stronger barcode scans and geo‑tagging, IT upgrades, tighter licence checks, and regular monitoring to plug leakages and curb smuggling if carried out.