Andhra to take over retail liquor trade?

CHENNAI: Following reports about the Andhra Pradesh Government’s decision to take over retail liquor trade from June 2012, a team of loadmen, attached to a trade union from the neighbouring State, visited the TASMAC depot at Kakkalur in Tiruvallur district on Wednesday.“We visited the depot to observe the model adopted for paying the loadmen here (in Tamil Nadu) in the wake of our State Government’s proposal to enter the retail liquor sales business,” J V Thalapthi, State president of Andhra Pradesh Beverages Corporation IMFL Loading and Unloading Workers’ Union, affiliated to the AITUC, told Express. “About 3,000 loadmen are employed in 40 liquor depots across Andhra Pradesh. They earn an average monthly income of Rs 25, 000 for their services,” he added.The team enquired about the system in place at the depots, beginning from receiving liquor cases from the distilleries to dispatching them to the retail outlets. While the private bidders, who are running the wine shops pay the loadmen at the depots in Andhra Pradesh, the logistics pertaining to transportation of liquor bottles to the outlets from depots is outsourced in Tamil Nadu. The Andhra Pradesh Government has been actively considering takeover of retail liquor trade after excess charging over and above the Maximum Retail Price (MRP) by retailers was unearthed recently.