B'kantha, Valsad, Baroda beat Ahmedabad in value

Gujarat seized liquor worth Rs 254.81 crore in two years before July 11, 2019, which included 15.49 lakh litre country liquor, 1.30 crore foreign liquor bottles and 17.35 lakh beer bottles, the home department informed on Thursday.

The highest number of foreign liquor bottles in the period was seized from Valsad followed by Banaskantha and Surat districts.

As many as 1.87 lakh bottles were seized from Valsad, 1.32 lakh from Banaskantha and 1.18 lakh from Surat. In terms of value of foreign liquor, Banaskantha topped with Rs 23.88 crore worth of liquor being seized followed by Valsad at Rs 22.98 crore, Vadodara Rs 16.92 crore and Ahmedabad Rs 16.46 crore.

With just 27,697 bottles of foreign liquor seized, Amreli remained the lowest in terms of number of bottles seized. In terms of value, Tapi was at the bottom with foreign liquor worth only 42.40 lakh seized in the two-year period.

With 7,11,187 bottles of foreign liquor worth Rs 16.46 crore, the total seizure along with country liquor and beer bottles from Ahmedabad district was at Rs 18.73 crore.

In all, the total seizure of liquor from the state included Rs 232.13 crore worth of foreign liquor, Rs 17.99 crore of beer and Rs 3.06 crore of country liquor. In Surat district, the administration seized 11.77 lakh bottles of foreign liquor worth Rs 13.40 crore which together with country liquor and beer was worth Rs 16.48 crore.

Minister of state for home Pradipsinh Jadeja told Mirror that increased monitoring has led to increase in number of seizures of illicit liquor.

“We have adopted a zero-tolerance policy in cases of liquor. The number of seizures and the amount have shot up because of the action taken not just by the police but also by the monitoring cell of the state police. We have also seized vehicles involved in liquor transport,” he said while talking to Mirror.