25 out of 110 micro breweries’ licences given to ministers’ coteries: Harish Rao

HYDERABAD

In a fresh salvo fired at the ruling Congress party, Bharat Rashtra Samithi leader and former minister T. Harish Rao has alleged irregularities in the issuance of licences to micro breweries stating that they were allotted through political (leader-wise) quotas.

He accused the Excise department of earmarking 25 out of 110 licences to those recommended by ministers and other key leaders of the ruling party in return of kickbacks collected through intermediaries. In an informal chat with newspersons here on Wednesday, he stated that micro breweries’ scam was one more skeleton tumbling out the Congress misrule.

The BRS leader alleged that under the quota of a key leader, 21 licences were kept ready, while the remaining four were reserved under a minister’s quota. “A person acting as a close shadow of the senior leader had recently come into the spotlight. This individual has direct access to the leader’s residence and accompanies him regularly,” Mr. Harish Rao said.

He stated that unofficial agreements were made to collect ₹1.80 crore per micro brewery licence and ₹1.50 crore each was meant for the main leader, while another ₹30 lakh each went to the intermediary acting on his behalf. Further, he alleged that some wine (liquor) shop licences were issued to select individuals without conducting the mandatory lucky draw process.

For the first time in the history of the State, liquor supply companies were facing pending dues of nearly ₹4,500 crore as payments to liquor supplying companies were not released for the last 16 months. Due to the negligence, one of the liquor varieties, breezer (a ready to drink alcoholic beverage) supply had completely stopped in many parts of the State, he pointed out.

Besides, several multinational liquor companies had repeatedly written to the government stating that they would stop supplies due to non-payment of dues. Internal disputes over the commission sharing among ministers had led to this crisis and it could seriously impact the State revenue, he noted.

On the hologram tender issue, Mr. Harish Rao said conflicts between a senior leader and a minister had resulted in an IAS officer being pushed into voluntary retirement. While beer manufacturing companies were receiving full support, farmers were being completely neglected. Crop holidays were declared in nearly 70,000 acres ayacut under Singur dam and Ghanpur anicut in the combined Medak district.