The department, that recorded poor revenue collection as a result of the alleged illegality, has decided to impose heavy penalty on the violators. However, raids carried out in the last few days found that several zones have not been involved in the distillation of fermented cashew juice due to a bad season.
Excise Commissioner Menino D’Souza said the checks would be a continuous process in the wake of repeated complaints. “We receive complaints that several cashew zones that have not been bid for have installed stills in their distillations. As per the Goa Excise Duty Act, such zones cannot carry out such activities unless they participate in the auctioning process. Only zones that have been bid for can carry out distillation process,” he said speaking to Herald.
The illegality has also largely affected revenue collection with the recent figures showing a sloping trend. The department could generate around Rs 31 lakh from the cashew traders in the current year, which was Rs 31.93 lakh approx last year.
“The checks even at zones that have been bid for will streamline the entire process,” he said conceding the drop is a result of the present situation. The State has 1641 cashew zones and 2,300 stills.
While the raids have so far detected around 3-4 cases where zones that have not been bid for are producing the beverage, the result was not as expected. “Majority did not get into manufacturing basically because the State suffered a bad cashew season,” Assistant Commissioner of Excise Satyawan Bhivshet said.
The authorities are optimistic that regular checks and heavy penalty on violators would ensure all zones take part in the auctioning process conducted by the commission.
