PANJIM: The procedure is not new. For over five decades any person travelling out of Goa is allowed to carry two bottles of liquor for personal consumption with a valid permit costing Rs 20 given by the Excise Department and available at liquor shops across the State.

As liquor products are priced much higher outside the State, almost every visitor to Goa carries some liquor on his return. The snag in this is that the neighbouring states of Karnataka and Maharashtra ignore these permits.

The Excise Department earns approximately Rs 5 lakh per day from the issue of these permits, which works out to Rs 1.5 crore per month. “This is clearly a case of duping tourists coming to Goa and carrying liquor bottles back. This permit is not validated at the Goa border by the neighbouring State’s excise officials. There are also allegations from customers that Goa excise officers themselves do not validate these permits,” said a liquor seller from Panjim. 

Presently, Goa Excise issues permits to carry liquor to Daman, Diu, Punjab, Rajasthan, Odisha, Jammu & Kashmir, Manipur, Madhya Pradesh, Assam and Himachal. Goa Excise department does not have any reciprocal agreement with any of these States on whether they will allow liquor to be permitted or to be transported         from Goa.

It is at the border checkpoint that tourists travelling by road realize that the Excise permit is not honoured by the other State officials.

Excise Commissioner Menino D’Souza said, “Every State has its own excise rules. We issue permits to those States that allow import from other States for personal consumption. If any State does not allow with this permit it is their concern.” 

When Herald asked for a permit from a retail shop in Panjim to carry two bottles to Punjab, the retailer issued a permit to Daman stating that the permit is good enough to transport liquor to Punjab. 

Goa Excise does not have a mechanism to verify whether the liquor is carried to the State mentioned on the permit. 

There are allegations that Goa Excise is collecting money from tourists and visitors with false assurances. While each permit may cost Rs 20, the total amount per month works to a minimum of approximately Rs 1.5 crore, traders say. 

Comment sourced from www.ipaidabribe.com 

“I was carrying four bottles of country made liquor with permit from wholesale dealer of liquor.... we were stopped by policeman on check post on the way to Kolhapur on the ghat after Tarele town... they threatened us with the motive that the Goa permit to carry liquor is invalid and is not applicable in Maharashtra and were harassing us that they will put us to jail and will seize our cars and Rs 20,000 fine... else a Rs 15,000 fine per head as we were 5 people in car.... we people got so scared the way the policeman was threatening us by telling us some Mumbai punishment Act 470 or something like that and threatening to take us to police station... after a lot of talk and requesting he took Rs 2000 in cash and 2 bottles of liquor with them... my point is we common people are fooled by officials... we carry a permit for taking liquor to our State for personal consumption... but why is the permit regarded invalid at Maharashtra check post....?? We had to suffer a loss of Rs 6,000 in total.... I want to know exact rules of carrying liquor from Goa state..?? And how much bottles can we carry and what is the procedure...???