 "Liquor")
Karnataka tops in the country when it comes to liquor prices, and the tax on maximum retail price (MRP) is also higher in Karnataka than in other states, reported The Times of India (ToI).
Karnataka levies an 83 per cent tax on the actual price of liquor, which makes it costly compared to the other states, said the report.
The report further said that a bottle of spirit (non-beer) that costs Rs 100 in Goa costs about Rs 513 in Karnataka. The high taxes and recent hike in liquor prices are adding up the value and putting Karnataka in the top position. On the other hand, Goa turned out to be the state where liquor prices are cheapest in India.
In the first budget since the Congress government was voted to power in Karnataka, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah increased duty on all 18 slabs of Indian Made Liquor (IML) by 20 per cent and on beer by 10 per cent. The revenue target for the excise department’s target was also hiked to Rs 36,000 crore.
However, the government’s plans seem to have backfired, as the Federation of Wine Merchants’ Association, Karnataka, reported a considerable drop in both sales and revenues in the first two weeks of August.
Despite positive figures in July, in the first half of August, only 21.87 lakh boxes of IML were sold, marking a 14.25 per cent decrease from the sales recorded during the same period in August 2022.
“The new prices came into effect from July 20 and sales of the old stock would have continued till the end of the month. But after the new prices have come, the demand has reduced,” an official of the association said.
