Liquor costs to go up by Rs 35-40 from Feb 1

By Express News Service
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The state authorities has given its concurrence to the Beverages Corporation’s choice to hike the liquor costs. The worth hike within the Rs 35-40 vary will come into impact from February 1. Recently, the Bevco director board had determined to extend the acquisition worth by seven per cent to deal with the long-pending demand of producers.

“The prevailing liquor prices were fixed when the extra neutral alcohol (ENA) price was about `48 per litre. The present price of ENA is about `58 per litre and, in between, it had risen to as much as `69. We rejected the previous requests by suppliers citing reasons like flood,” stated a high supply.

“Discussions with suppliers are on and the final price list will be prepared by the end of this week,” he stated. Besides the producers, the value hike may even improve the income of the Beverages Corporation and the state authorities as a result of corresponding  improve in revenue, gross sales tax and excise responsibility. 

This would be the second worth hike for liquor within the present monetary 12 months. In May, the costs went up after gross sales tax was elevated by 35 per cent owing to the Covid-induced monetary crunch of the state authorities. At current, the gross sales tax on IMFL is 237 per cent for manufacturers priced as much as Rs 400 and 247 per cent for manufacturers costing above `400.