Chandigarh : Ghanshyam Saraf, Haryana Minister of State for Excise and Taxation, has rubbished the allegations levelled by Mr Karan Singh Dalal, Congress MLA, as ill-founded, politically motivated and divorced from ground level reality.
Stating this here today, Mr Saraf said that under the leadership of the Haryana Chief Minister, Mr Manohar Lal, the BJP Government was working with full accountability and transparency and that Mr Dalal was giving unrestrained and unverified statements to be just in the news.
The Excise and Taxation Department is working excellently with zero tolerance to corruption, carrying out regular raids and taking action against the defaulters who are violating the rules of the department. From April 1, 2015 till today, the department has registered 11 cases of violation of rules, under which fine of over Rs 3.19 lakh was imposed and recovered, he said.
The department has imposed maximum fine on country made liquor since April 1 whereas very little fine was imposed earlier. As compared to previous years, this fine is very high which is a proof of zero tolerance to the violators of rules.
The Minister said that only 33 cases were registered by the previous government in 2013-14 and a fine of over Rs 51.62 lakh was imposed. In 2012-13, 96 cases were registered and a fine of over Rs 1.86 crore was imposed. Similarly, in 2011-12, 125 cases were registered and a fine of over Rs 4.44 crore was imposed.
Mr Saraf said that Mr Dalal had given a statement that the present government was imposing less fine on the violators of rules whereas the facts tell a different story. According to the data of the previous government, maximum violations of rules were detected in the month of March from 2010 to October 2014 which done for formality sake.
Under the present government, the department has auctioned contracts of liquor vends online which has netted 18.23 per cent more revenue from bids on liquor vends. The total revenue of the department is estimated to have increased from Rs 3,400 crore to Rs 4,500 crore.
The allegations leveled by the Congress MLA that the present government has increased the quota of liquor is completely false as contracts of liquor were allocated based on the quota fixed in 2010-11 and since 2010-11, there has been no increase in the quota.