Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa announced the 2021-22 state Budget on Monday, in which the state government specified the revenue collection target for the Excise Department has increased from Rs 22,700 crore to Rs 24,580 crore.
The budget document did not specify any additional taxes levied on liquor sales in the state.
Chief Minister Yediyurappa said that although the Excise Department's target for the year 2020-21 was Rs 22,700 crore, Rs 20,900 crore was collected until the end of February.
The collections of the Excise Department in the state took a hit during the lockdown enforced in the country in March and April of 2020. When liquor stores opened on May 4, 2020, long queues were reported in Bengaluru and other parts of the state. The Excise Department reported it had collected Rs 45 crore on the first day that liquor stores opened after the lockdown.
Later in September, residents in the state were allowed to drink in restaurants and bars. The Excise Department reported in December 2020, that it was on track to achieve the revenue collection target laid out by the state government before the lockdown. In a report, it said that the cumulative revenue collection was only 4.25% less compared to the excise revenue generated by December in 2019.
Senior Excise Department officials said that the additional excise duty introduced in the 2020 state budget was a key reason for the recovery of liquor sales in the state last year.
On January 1, 2021, the Excise Department reported that Rs 48 crore worth of alcohol was sold in Bengaluru alone on New Year's Eve. The figures stated that 56,000 cartons of Indian Made Liquor (IML) and 50,000 cartons of beer were sold in the city on December 31, 2020.