The memories of spurious liquor deaths in Chikiti in Ganjam area are still fresh in the minds of people. After the incident, a lot of people are now buying liquor from government-licensed shops with the hope that the product would be original. However, the Excise department officials were taken aback after finding that duplicate liquor was being sold at a licensed government store.
Such a incident has not been reported from any remote area, rather from Smart City Bhubaneswar. The Excise officials on Monday conducted a surprise raid at the government-licensed shop at Baramunda area.
A senior Excise official said, “We had earlier said that we had collected some samples and found that the cap of liquor bottles, hologram and other features were different. Today, we raided the place where the staff were staying. First, we found several caps and excise adhesives were found. Later, during the raid on the shop, we detected the same cap and labels on various bottles.”
The official further said that a person can check the authenticity by scanning the QR code which will then show the serial number of the bottle, brand and quantity. When asked if it is practically possible for a person to check such, the official said, “We have asked staff to collect samples at regular intervals.”
The official further assured that samples and stock of other shops will be collected and checked.
“We are not ruling out any shop to be involved in irregularities. We will check the stock of the stores. In the current shop, all the stock has been seized and samples will be sent for examination. A person from Jharkhand is the licensee of the shop. We have seized liquor stock of around Rs 40 lakh from the shop today,” the official added.
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