Punjab task force set up to check smuggling

CHANDIGARH, April 8: The Punjab Excise Department has decided to raise a task force of 700 policemen, including some police officers, to eff...

CHANDIGARH, April 8: The Punjab Excise Department has decided to raise a task force of 700 policemen, including some police officers, to effectively curb smuggling and illicit distillation of liquor in the state in the wake of availability of liquor at cheap rates in neighbouring states.

According to Financial Commissioner (Excise and Taxation) C L Bains, these policemen shall included three Deputy Superintendents of Police, some Inspectors, Sub-Inspectors, Assistant SIs, and lower ranks. They would be on deputation with the Excise Department for a period of one year and shall be paid salaries by the hiring department which shall also assign them their duties and functions. District police chiefs would not be able to recall them, Bains added.

They would be deployed mainly along the Indo-Pak border and Haryana-Chandigarh borders of Punjab, besides in the interior of the state also. On completion of one year, they shall go back and be replaced by new faces so as not to allow them develop vested interests inthe department.This step comes in the wake of the government’s decision to amend the Punjab Excise Act so as to make smuggling of liquor a non-bailable offence.

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Bains further disclosed that four Class One officers of the excise department had been placed under suspension for not performing their duties properly during recent auctions of liquor vends and failing to ensure competitive bids with the result licence fee collections in some districts went down, instead of showing a rising trend.

The officers include Assistant Excise and Taxation Commissioner(Muktsar) H.S.Gill, Excise and Taxation officer(ETO) at Muktsar Lakhbir Singh Brar, ETO Sangrur Jaspal Singh and ETO Ludhiana Raj Singh.

They were being issued charge-sheets also for negligence of duty, Bains said.