Having shifted their primary focus to cracking the whip on narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances of late, the Excise Department has chosen to train their guns yet again on illicit toddy and sale of Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) made out of smuggled spirit, popularly known as ‘seconds’, during this Onam.
This was after excise enforcement officials realised that their focus on drugs may have emboldened unscrupulous elements dealing in illicit toddy and ‘seconds’ to turn more active.
The opening of many licensed toddy shops, which previously had no takers, is seen as an indication of many old hands returning to the business. While the government is protective of the traditional toddy sector and the employees engaged therein, unhealthy practices might have crept into the sector exploiting that favourable policy.
Officials were sure that benami arrangements are very much prevalent in the toddy sector and that unseen players are at work behind the façade of workers who for the outside world seem to be operating toddy shops. Synthetic alternatives to toddy, having toxic chemical compositions and high alcoholic content, distributed through toddy shops remain another challenge to officials.
But the Chief Chemical Examiner’s lab in Thiruvananthapuram and the two regional chemical labs in Ernakulam and Kozhikode could hardly detect unknown foreign components unless some clues were supplied about the possible components so that they could try to trace them.
There is another flip side as well for enforcement officials who can do precious little where the ethyl alcohol content is so negligible that it does not possess any characteristics of toddy and this amounts to cheating of customers.
Excise officials said the ‘same old’ players were active when it comes to the smuggling of spirit that goes into the making of ‘seconds’ of popular brands of IMFL. The absence of liquor outlets seems to have added to the customer base for ‘seconds.’
Spirit is mostly smuggled from Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Goa. While Tamil Nadu has no distilleries, spirit brought in from Maharashtra and Punjab are stored on the outskirts and then smuggled into Kerala. Satchels of 60 ml available in the State are mostly brought in from Mahi and Goa.
