Chandigarh, May 10: Those buying liquor in Punjab may finally start getting a bill for every bottle with the excise and taxation department finally issuing directions to its staff to enforce the new system in ‘letter and spirit’.
Bills for sale of liquor were made mandatory by the Punjab government in its excise policy for 2018-19 on directions of the Punjab and Haryana high court but it was not being implemented with liquor vend owner not keen to bring every sale on record. Directions have now been sent to all deputy excise and taxation commissioners by the excise department, asking them to display helpline numbers on vends in the state so that complaints about violations of the rule can be made and the billing system is complied with.
Road safety activist Harman Sidhu, who had approached the court to seek mandatory issuance of bills, suggested that the excise department should ideally ask the vend owners to issue digital bills using hand-held devices used at parking lots or the ones installed at toll plazas. “The helpline system doesn’t seem to work. The Haryana government had claimed that it had an e-mail ID for such complaints but the feedback has not been very encouraging. Why should a customer take such pains to get a bill. It should be handed over for all sales,” he said.
Sidhu’s petition too had stated that issuance of bills with the help of a bar code does not involve any hardship to the vendor and rather secures the rights of the consumer. Besides, issuance of a computerised invoice will help the income tax department for assessment and collection of appropriate tax because usually after the end of the financial year, the partnership firms get dissolved and the partners are not traceable. Even though the provision for issuing bills with respect to sale, wholesale or retail, has been made in Punjab Liquor Licence Rules, 1956, clause (d) of Rule 38. However, the state has not been able to implement it till now.
Meanwhile, a vend owner in Mohali said that he was still in the process of putting a billing system in place. “We have got to know about the new rule but there is no particular format of the bill provided by the department. Most customers are not interested in asking for a bill for the liquor bottles,” he said.
It is believed that the problem of spurious liquor will also get curtailed to some extent as a vendor will not be able to sell spurious liquor or low quality liquor in expensive bottles. An official said the rule pertaining to bills was already there in the excise policy. Besides, the department would also conduct surprise checks in future to ensure its compliance, besides acting on any complaint received from customers in the state.
Source Times of India
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