Haryana Minister of State for Excise and Taxation Ghanshyam Saraf today rubbished the allegations levelled by Congress leader Karan Singh Dalal, as "ill-founded, politically motivated and divorced from ground level reality".
Stating this here today, Saraf said that under the leadership of the Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar, the BJP Government is working with full accountability and transparency and that Dalal was giving "unrestrained and unverified" statements to be just in the news.
On August 25, Congress MLA, Karan Singh Dalal had demanded a high-level judicial probe into what he alleged was a "multi-crore liquor scam" going on in the State, causing huge loss of revenue to the government exchequer.
Saraf said the Excise and Taxation Department is working "excellently with zero tolerance to corruption", carrying out regular raids and taking action against the defaulters who are violating the rules of the department.
From April 1, 2015 till today, the department has registered 11 cases of violation of rules, under which fine of over Rs 3.19 lakh was imposed and recovered, he said.
The Minister said only 33 cases were registered by the previous government in 2013-14 and a fine of over Rs 51.62 lakh was imposed.
In 2012-13, 96 cases were registered and a fine of over Rs 1.86 crore was imposed. Similarly, in 2011-12, 125 cases were registered and a fine of over Rs 4.44 crore was imposed.
Saraf said that Dalal had given a statement that the present government was imposing less fine on the violators of rules whereas the facts are different. According to the data of the previous government, maximum violations of rules were detected in the month of March from 2010 to October 2014.
Under the present government, the department has auctioned contracts of liquor vends online which has netted 18.23 per cent more revenue from bids on liquor vends. The total revenue of the department is estimated to have increased from Rs 3,400 crore to Rs 4,500 crore.
