'Drunk' on revenue, excise department unsteady in action

Hyderabad: Bhagyanagar, a wannabe 'global city', a thriving IT hub, the home of Tollywood, and yes, the capital of Telangana, suddenly woke up to a danger on its streets.Under-aged kids drunk up to their gills, who have no business to be at the wheel of two or three tonne steel machines, in the best of circumstances, cocking a snook at the law and in the worst, killing innocent road users.
However, a normally slumbering government and the city police appear to have been jolted into sobriety following the July 1 road accident on Road No. 3 of Banjara Hills, that has so far claimed three lives, covering three generations of one family. A flurry of announcements followed ­ that the police will crack down on drunken driving, bars and pubs serving liquor to under-aged persons will be taken to task, and so on and so forth.
But the real question that has not been answered so far is whether the government needed a series of generation spanning deaths to prod it into action. The department of prohibition and excise of the state government, tasked with all issues related to production, distribution, sale and regulation of alcoholic beverages in the state, clearly failed in preventing pubs and bars from serving liquor to under-aged persons and the consequences are still being felt from the July 1 accident that claimed its third victim on Monday.
But then, over the decades, the excise department as it is better known, was given the primary task of boosting the state's revenues and has not really been asked to implement the rest of the laws related to its sphere of influence. Soon after the 2016 17 financial year began, the department patted itself hard on its back for improving its revenues from Rs 10,238.78 crore in 2014-15 to Rs 12,143.88 crore in 2015-16.
And to drive the point home of just how important a role peddling of booze has been playing in keeping Telangana afloat financially, the department officials have never failed to remind anyone that the growth in earnings amounted to a healthy 18.61 per cent. And also of course, a point that was not to be missed was also hammered home. The excise department set a new revenue record! That is not all. For the current 2016-17, the excise department wants to rock the state's coffers once again. It no longer is content with a healthy revenue growth. Instead, this time, it wants a robust 20 per cent growth i n its income amounting to Rs 14,161.
07 crore. This by itself is not very sur prising. Just look at what has been happening in the IT hub of Hyderabad. Just in and around the Cyberabad area, the government permitted 15 new bars and pubs to come up last December.This, in addition to the nearly 100 or so existing water holes in the area.
In fact, the government, for reasons best known to it, took a serendipitous deci sion by not going ahead in its attempt to turn the city overnight into a 'world class' place. Plans had been afoot to create an at mosphere for interna tional businessmen making a beeline to pump their cash into the city and state -to relax at boutique wine bars, pubs with micro-breweries attached, all-night bars and the like.
One can only imagine how many more excuses of short staffing would have been made had the city opened its door to such pleasures. And one can only imagine how much more lawlessness would have existed on city streets.
So far, what has been wit nessed have been mere knee jerk reactions of the city police, the government and some ministers. We have been told that we will hear the crack of a whip at every pub, bar and liquor store, and on under-aged drunken driv ing and driving without a li cence ­ which so far appear to have been drowned in traf fic noises on the streets.
Meanwhile, the city and particularly P Ramya's family, that has been the worst hit in years, wait for the excise department, the police and the government, to put their money where its mouth is. Clearly, the excise department appears to be generating a lot of money. And the mouths of course, have been making lot of empty noises so far.