Growth in liquor sales on New Year eve abysmal, says Tasmac

 

C Shivakumar

Chennai:

The growth in liquor sales this New Year eve has been abysmal across the state after Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation shifted 500 shops from the National Highway following a Supreme Court order, according to a top Tasmac official.

The official told Express on Thursday that during this New Year eve the sales have been not up to the expectations and growth has been nearly stagnant when compared to last year.

“Last New Year eve the total sale of liquor by the Tasmac outlets was Rs 80 crore and this year, the sales was somewhere around Rs 82 crore,” he said.

He said a total of 1.72 lakh cases of Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) were sold across the state. He said Tasmac also sold around 90,000 cases of beer. He said people preferred IMFL more to beer and in urban areas the sale of beer was more.

He said the four elite liquor shops – Alsa Mall in Egmore, 10 Square Mall in Koyambedu, Phoenix Mall in Velachery and Ramee Mall, sold liquor worth Rs 38 lakh during the New Year Eve.

He said Alsa Mall in Egmore alone sold liquor worth Rs 20 lakh, followed by 10 Square (Rs 8.6 lakh), Phoenix Mall (Rs 7.5 lakh and Ramee Mall (Rs 2.3 lakh.

Interestingly, on New Year, these premium liquor shops recorded a sale of around Rs 6 lakh with 10 Square Mall selling liquor worth Rs 2.5 lakh. “We are taking steps to increase the sale of liquor in the elite liquor shops,” he said.

D. Dhanasekaran, general secretary, Tamil Nadu Tasmac Paniyalargal Sangam, (All India Trade Union Congress), said that the upper middle class and upper class clientele would have migrated to the elite bar preferring to drink indoors but rejected that the sales at Tasmac outlets have gone down.

He did agree that profits of 80 of the 450 shops operating in Chennai may have been hit. But on a whole liquor sales have increased since 2003. It has never declined, he added.

Interestingly, Tasmac bar owners in many parts of the city maintain that business has been down by nearly 30 per cent in the bars during the last one week as most of my customers prefer to drink at homes rather than in the bars after police crackdown on tipplers.