Liquor worth Rs 20 lakhs down the drain to cover up fraud of Rs 5 lakh by BEVCO staff

KUMILY: Some employees stole foreign liquor worth Rs 5 lakh from beverages corporation's retail outlet in Kumily. Rs 20 lakhs worth of liquor was wasted to cover it up. Rs 5 lakhs loss was found and compensation was levied. But even after two years, no action has been taken regarding the waste of Rs 20 lakhs.

On January 16, 2019, Excise temporarily banned the sale of 361 cases of Jawan Liquor on the complaint that pollutants were found. From this set, 35 cases were siphoned off. A case contains nine litres of liquor. Thus, 315 litres of liquor were sold. The total cost of the liquor will come to Rs 2,01,600 lakhs if we calculate the current price of Jawan at Rs 640 per litre. It is reported that these were sold to plantation workers for cash.

On April 21, 2022, two employees at the retail store noticed the disappearance of many liquors in stock and discovered the fraud. Apart from Jawan, other liquor worth more than Rs 3 lakh was also lost. When this was brought to the notice of the beverage higher-ups, they were instructed to carry out stock verification and record it on video. Rs 5,87,560 compensation was collected from the employees based on the complaint with evidence.

However, to avoid being exposed, the employees have done a lot of illegal work. They hid the fact that the liquor banned for sale was found to be fine in the lab and given permission for distribution. 326 cases of Jawan were hidden and damaged over two years without anyone's knowledge. Then permission was obtained to destroy the stock as expired. Due to this, the loss to the government is around 20 lakhs. The Kottayam District Audit Team ordered the destruction of liquor.

Labelled as damaged, sold out and cashed

Following the complaint of 'pollutant' in alcohol, the sale will be frozen in consideration of public health

It is reported that this is not the first time that liquor is frozen in Kumily outlet and sold on the pretext of non-existent defect.

All the 13 retail outlets under the Ayarkunnam warehouse receive the same batch of liquor from the same distillery.

But none of the liquor bottles in the other retail outlets reported problems or were frozen

The employee at the helm of the scam is still working with promotion at the same outlet