After suffering losses due to demonetisation, liquor and beer outlets across the city did brisk business on the eve of New Year.
Tipplers made a beeline to various outlets helping sales to pick up. The last four days saw 74,066 cases of liquor (IML) being sold across hundreds of outlets, while 68,131 cases were sold during December 28 and December 31 last year.
The sale value during the four days was Rs. 30.49 crore this year compared to Rs. 28.90 crore last year. In November, liquor sale was badly affected owing to the cash crunch, but the sales picked up later in December with the increasing usage of Point of Sale machines and other digital transactions both by customers and retailers.
In fact, Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu made a note of the increasing usage of digital transactions at liquor stores at a meeting with bureaucrats recently. Excise Minister Kollu Ravindra had earlier said there was a dip in sale during November and the government had lost revenue of Rs. 200 crore approximately.
“The impact of demonetisation was little in the urban areas. A majority of the liquor outlets are now using POS machines. The sale has picked on the eve of New Year,” said assistant superintendent, Excise department, P.V. Ramana Rao.
He said a majority of the customers had been using debit and credit cards for purchases, thus avoiding ‘change’ problem. “We are now breathing easy as the sales have picked up. Until now, the business was dull and we incurred around Rs. 2 lakh loss per day,” said P. Naresh, manager of a chain of liquor outlets.
In December, the sales were up as Rs. 124 crore worth liquor was sold against last year’s Rs. 105 crore in the city.
Sales not up to mark
On the other hand, the overall sales in the State did not see an increase compared to last year. In 2015, 7.6 lakh cases of IML and 2.42 lakh cases of beer worth Rs. 307.41 crore were sold between December 28 and December 31. But this year, only 7.29 lakh cases of IML and 2.39 lakh cases of beer worth Rs. 284.61 crore were sold.
Meanwhile, the organisers of New Year parties at several venues in the city have reportedly placed bulk orders.
