CHANDIGARH: The Excise Department, Govt of Punjab has taken various initiatives to control the trade of liquor in the past one year. In its endeavour to streamline the working of liquor manufacturing units in the State, the department has entered into a partnership with the Indian Institute of Technology, Ropar for carrying out ‘Structural Audit’ of the layouts and ‘Technical Audit’ of the Mass Flow Meters (MFM) installed in these units.
Disclosing this here today, an official spokesperson said that this is a unique initiative whereby the department has collaborated with an independent agency to review and audit the working and systems of manufacturing units which include 16 Distilleries, 4 Breweries and 25 Bottling Plants. These units which are manufacturing Extra Neutral Alcohol, Denatured Spirit, Indian Made Foreign Liquor, Punjab Medium Liquor, and beer are established after the grant of license by the Excise Department and work as per the norms laid down in Excise Laws.
Divulging more, the spokesperson said that the structural layout of the units and the pipelines laid out for carrying the Extra Neutral Alcohol (ENA)/ denatured spirit/ rectified spirit are required to strictly comply the Excise laws. Recently MFMs were got installed in all the distilleries, bottling plants, and Breweries at the instance of the excise department to accurately measure the quantity of ENA or other spirits produced by the distilleries and later dispatched or consumed for bottling.
The Excise officials inspect these units and keep a strict vigil on them and in case of any discrepancy action is taken against the units. Taking a quantum leap in ensuring transparency in working of the manufacturing units and to plug any loopholes, the department decided to get a Third-Party Audit done from one of the most reputed institute of the state - IIT, Ropar. A team comprising technical experts and domain knowledge will audit each unit and give its report. The team will check the structural layout and working of MFMs in an in-depth manner. The entire expenditure of this audit will be borne by the Excise department.
The scope of work includes the structural audit of the layout and the technical audit of the MFMs in the manufacturing units. The purpose of the structural audit of layout is to check whether the plant and various structures built-in it are as per the site map approved by the department. Along with this, the pipelines laid out in the manufacturing unit will be checked. The purpose of checking the pipelines is to check that no parallel pipeline exists to take out the spirit from the normal flow. A technical audit of the MFMs will be done to check specifications and calibration. It would also check if the flowmeters are measuring the entire outflow of the spirit and no other pipeline is laid out to bypass the flowmeter.
The audit by the team of experts of IIT ROPAR started today from M/S Rajasthan Liquors Limited, Dera Bassi and will cover all the manufacturing units of the State in a span of six months. This audit will go a long way in bringing compliance at the manufacturing level and prevent pilferage of ENA and thereby protect the revenue of the State, added the Spokesperson.