INTRODUCTION
The Government of West Bengal has undertaken progressive policy reforms to strengthen
State Finances. In line with the reforms process adopted by the State, in the Alcoholic
Beverages Industry, a State owned corporation has been set up for managing the business
aspect of the supply chain management of liquor in West Bengal. This has resulted
in taking over the entire wholesale business of liquor in the State from private
owned and operated trades to government owned and operated distributorship resulting
in better control and regulation over the distribution and supply of liquor in a
transparent and efficient manner.
Several States in India have already entered in the wholesale liquor trade, establishing
Government Monopolistic Corporation for distribution of liquor. West Bengal became
one of the newest entrants in this bandwagon of liquor distribution through fully
Government Controlled liquor wholesale distribution network with the formation of
West Bengal State Beverages Corporation limited.
The West Bengal State Beverages Corporation Ltd. was set up as a wholly owned and
controlled Public Sector Company under the Finance Department, Government of West
Bengal and notified vide Finance Department Notification No. 04-EX dated 05.01.2017.
It was incorporated under Ministry of Corporate Affairs, Government of India on
25.01.2017 with a working capital of 20 Crores.
POLICY: PURPOSE AND APPROACH
The West Bengal State Beverages Corporation was created primarily with the following
objectives: -
- To act as an intermediary between liquor suppliers and retailers in West Bengal
and thereby establishing a better control over the liquor distribution network all
over the state.
- Managing of distribution of packaged liquor in the state by acting as a wholesale
distributor of liquor.
- Procurement of bottled liquor from all liquor manufacturers in the State and from
suppliers situated outside the State and selling the same to all liquor retailers
in the State.
- Procurement of overseas liquor from brand owners / Suppliers through Customs Stations
and distribution to retail outlets.
- Acting as an intermediator for export of packaged foreign liquor to other States
from manufacturing units situated within West Bengal.
- Regulating the trade of liquor in West Bengal to tackle the rising menace of spurious/illicit/non-duty
paid liquor.
Technically and legally, the corporation operates independently and is a separate
entity from the Excise Directorate, with distinct objectives.
The Excise Directorate is responsible for framing and enforcing policies and rules
for the production, distribution and sale of liquor in the state, and for collecting
state taxes derivable from such production, distribution and sale.
The corporation on the other hand is a corporate entity tasked with running the
wholesale business in liquor in the state. It strives to earn enough cash to sustain
itself, and enough surplus to expand its business and to pay dividends to the government.
However, given the fact that liquor is a restricted substance whose business is
highly regulated by the state government, and given that the Intermediary is a government-controlled
entity, there are very close linkages between, and even some overlapping of functions
of, the Excise Directorate and The Intermediary.
Some of the linkages are borne out from the following:
- Who can manufacture and / or sell liquor in West Bengal, is determined and controlled
by the Excise Directorate by a system of licensing. Therefore, the entities in West
Bengal that the Corporation procures bottled liquor from, and sells bottled liquor
to, is limited to the universe of entities licensed by the Excise Directorate.
- The procurement of bottled liquor from suppliers outside the state, requires the
authorization of, and is under the control of the Excise Directorate, as also is
the export of bottled liquor from the state. Therefore, the corporation’s business-related
dealings with liquor suppliers and customers outside West Bengal, is limited to
the universe of such suppliers and customers approved or authorized by the Excise
Directorate.
- The brand-names of and labels under which bottled liquor can be manufactured and
/ or sold in West Bengal, have to be registered with the Excise Directorate. Therefore,
the products that the corporation is able to trade in, is limited to the products
registered with Excise Directorate.
- All movement of liquor into, within, and from the state has to be authorized by
the Excise Directorate through the issue of import / transport / export passes,
Therefore, all movement of liquor incidental to trades executed by the corporation
have to be authorized by the issue of the relevant passes or permits issued by the
Excise Directorate.
- Being the regulatory and policy-framing agency for liquor trade in West Bengal,
the Excise Directorate is interested in the inventory data maintained by the corporation.
- Being a Public Sector Undertaking, the corporation has not just legal obligation
but also moral obligation to ensure that all trade in liquor in the state is carried
out within the regulatory framework established by the Excise Directorate, and there
is no leakage in revenue due to the Government on account of Excise Duties and Fees.
TARGETS AND ACHIEVEMENTS
Following its incorporation during January, 2017 the Corporation had set a target
of taking over the entire wholesale distribution of packaged liquor across the State
within a year. The transition of the wholesale business in liquor from private players
to the Corporation was not an overnight shift but was done in a phase wise manner.
This phased roll out was done in order to ensure that there is no supply disruption
on the one hand and no undue losses or hardships to the people associated with the
private businesses on the other.
The operations of the Corporation were first rolled out in three North Bengal districts,
namely, Alipurduar, Jalpaiguri and Dakshin Dinajpur, during July, 2017, when three
foreign liquor depots were made operational in these districts. Thereafter depots
were made operational in the rest of the district in West Bengal in a phased manner
with the depots at Kolkata being the last to be operationalized during January,
2018. The entire wholesale trade of Country Spirit was taken over during August,
2017 by the Corporation. Today, the Corporation operates 23 standalone Foreign Liquor
Depots, 35 Country Spirit Depots and 3 exclusive Beer Depots. Within a year of its
incorporation the entire wholesale business of liquor was successfully and smoothly
taken over by the Corporation.
All the foreign liquor depots are standalone trades operating from rented private
owned premises (except the depot situated at Durgapur, which is situated in Govt.
owned Premises) hired on 3 years’ lease from the successful bidders (who quoted
the lowest price) through an open tender process. The foreign liquor depots have
floor spaces varying from 10000 sq. ft. to 25000 sq. ft. in accordance with the
business volume of the depot.
Each Foreign liquor depot has a defined catchment area which in most of the cases
includes the area of the District. The retail licensees dealing in foreign liquor
have source their supplies of liquor from the earmarked foreign liquor depot within
whose catchment area such retailers are located and to which they are tagged.
Leasing of the foreign liquor depots through a process of open tender and site inspections
for compliance of conditions before finalization and setting up the required infrastructure
for operationalization of the foreign liquor depots was a big challenge. As the
depots are mostly situated in areas away from the locality, getting proper internet
connectivity, electricity and water connection, proper roads for ingress and egress
of loaded vehicles was quite a daunting task. However, the challenges have been
met well and all the depots are functioning smoothly at present.
GOVERNANCE
Following decision of the Government of West Bengal during early 2017 to take over
the entire wholesale business of packaged liquor in the state from the private sector
through the West Bengal State Beverages Corporation Ltd., a company formed under
the Finance Department, Government of West Bengal, the entire process flow of this
corporation dealing with the liquor market with an annual turnover of around Rs.
15,000 Crores has been automated under the eBevco package. Registered suppliers
raise sale offers to the Corporation electronically and supply stocks to the Corporation’s
depots against Orders of Supply which too are electronic placed and retailers source
their supplies from the Corporation by booking stocks over the eBevco portal which
offers them a seamless experience by providing an online shopping cart with integrated
payment gateways.
With eBevco system, the West Bengal State Beverages Corporation (WBSBCL) has computerized
critical operations and functioning which include supply management, retailer e-payment,
invoicing and certain critical functions within depots like warehouse management,
finance & accounts among others.
The eBevco system has proved to be successful in analysing and improving the corporation’s
revenue through sales and transaction analytical capabilities where the solution
components like SCM are integrated with this decision support system. Also the Government
is in a position to analyse the available data and come to logical conclusion which
helps in increasing the revenue and have better control on the movement of liquor-both
legal and illegal. The project has proved to be beneficial to suppliers and retailers,
as it has helped them to maintain statutory registers easily, apart from giving
them an electronic platform to transact with WBSBCL and the Excise Directorate.
Besides, following features have made eBevco system a unique solution among all
available SCM/ERP in government sectors: -
- Anticipating Purchase Orders From Excise Retailers Before they are Placed - Machine
Learning for Supply Chain Planning (ML-SCP) forecasting within inventory, demand
& supply and thereby balancing demand & supply based upon intelligent algorithms
and machine-to-machine analysis of big data sets
- Machine Learning for Warehouse Management through overcoming supply flaws (overstocking
or under stocking)
- Creating Supply Chain visibility and gaining supply risk insights through usage
of cognitive technology to track and predict supply chain disruptions based on gathering
and correlating external data from disparate sources such as newsfeeds, weather
forecasts and historical data
Through successful implementation of eBevco system since last 2 years, West Bengal
has earned the distinction of becoming the lead state in the country to implement
all activities of State Excise Beverage Corporation under an umbrella e-Governance
project. It has proved to be a Classic example of cost-effective solution in comprehensive
transformation of government processes for empowerment of the Government in line
of Ease of Doing Business (EoDB).
PUBLICATIONS: LIQUOR SOURCING POLICY
The operations of the Corporation, including registration of Suppliers, Sale Offers,
Orders for Supply, indenting by retailers, invoicing, payment to suppliers etc.
are guided by the Liquor Sourcing Policy that the Corporation publishes annually.
The Liquor Sourcing Policy of the Corporation is publicly available on the website
of Excise Directorate and the eBevco portal.
ADMINISTRATIVE STRUCTURE
Besides the above posts under the control of Managing Director, WBSBCL there are
three other posts :-
- One Company Secretary
- One Law Officer
- One System Analyst
CATEGORY OF OFFICERS AND STAFFS DEPLOYED AT THE WBSBCL
DEPOTS
|
Category
of officers/staffs
|
Nature of Duties
|
FL
Depot.
|
CS
Depot.
|
|
Depot. manager
|
i) Overall supervision and management of depot. ii) Procurement and distribution
of liquor in FIFO manner.
iii) Supervision of assets including stationary articles, physical stock, statutory
registers etc. iv) Vigil over the
Subordinate staff. v) Active control over the system of receiving and issue of
TP and sell invoice.
|
23
|
33
|
|
Asst.
Depot. Manager
|
i) Assisting the depot Manager in overall supervision and management of depot.
ii) Supervision of loading and unloading of liquors. iii) Supervision of batch wise
distribution of liquor to maintain FIFO. iv) Physical verification of stock at regular
interval. v) Assisting the depot manager in system operation towards receiving and
issue of TP and sell invoice
|
37
|
20
|
|
Category
of officers/staffs
|
Nature of Duties
|
FL
Depot.
|
CS
Depot.
|
|
Data Entry Operator/Floor
Assistant
|
i) Receiving of stock and proper racking as per batch no, brand and quantity wise.
ii) Proper loading as per loading invoice keep in view the FIFO method. iii) Physical
verification of stock regularly and assisting Depot Manager/Assistant Depot Manager
to verify such. iv) Generation of loading pass, issuance of TP from system for further
action at Depot Manager/Assistant Depot Manager end. v) Checking of details of vehicles,
their loading and unloading. vi) Reporting the exact breakage numbers to the Depot
Manager.
|
165
|
NIL
|
|
Security Supervisor
|
i) Deployment of security guard in proper manner. ii) Overall management of the
security guards. iii) To keep constant vigil on the assets of the depot and check
the TP of dispatching vehicle and to report any untoward incident to Depot Manager.
|
23
|
NIL
|
|
Security Guard
|
i) Guard the physical assets of the depot. ii) Prevent any kind of irregularity
and report the same in case of such an occurrence to the DM. iii) Help in proper
queuing of loading and unloading vehicles to facilitate the speedy functioning of
the system.
|
197
|
NIL
|
ACHIEVEMENTS AND SOME RELEVANT DATA REGARDING FUNCTIONING
OF THE WBSBCL IN THE YEAR 2018-19
- The decision of setting up of West Bengal State Beverages Corporation Ltd to take
over the wholesale distribution of liquor has become successful due to, -
- Strategic takeover of the wholesale business in a phased manner throughout the State
and to complete the same within one year from the date of incorporation of the said
company.
- In house development of transparent and down to earth ERP modules with the help
of NIC
- Decision of least interference in marketing and pricing of liquor by the manufacturers
/ brand owners
- Brining highest level of transparency in the manner of distribution of liquor and
financial transactions with the manufacturers
- Quickness in decision making to safeguard the business interest of the Company which
lacks in most of the Government owned companies
- Regular interactions with the stake holders and open mindedness in accepting their
suggestions.
- vii) There created direct employment for 336 persons and around 1500 indirect employment
to manage the daily affair of WBSBCL.
- The corporation did a business with annual turnover of Rs. 13676.83 crores during
F.Y 2018-19. The total income of the WBSBCL during 2018-19 including margins from
sale, interest from FDs and registration fees from Suppliers was around 312.50 crores.
- The net profit of the WBSBCL during the F.Y 2018-19 was around Rs. 81.17 crores.
BOARD OF DIRECTORS AS ON 31.03.2019
1. Shri Hari Krishna Dwivedi, I.A.S, Chief Secretary, Govt. of West
Bengal.
2. Shri Krishna Gupta, I.A.S
3. Shri Khalid Aizaz Anwar, I.A.S, Commissioner Commercial Taxes, West Bengal.
4. Dr. T. Uma Shankar , I.A.S, Excise Commissioner, West Bengal.
BANKER
ICICI Bank
REGISTERED OFFICE
‘SUBHANNA’, 9th Floor, 2nd Avenue, DF Block, Sector-1, Salt Lake City, Kolkata
- 700064.
KEY OFFICIALS AND CONTACT DETAILS
|
Sl.
No.
|
Name
|
Designation
|
Phone No.
|
Fax No.
|
E.mail id
|
|
1
|
Sri Hare Krishna Dwivedi, IAS,
Chief Secretary to the Govt. of West Bengal
|
Chairman
|
033-2214
3695
|
033-
2214
4016
|
fs-wb@nic.in
|
|
2
|
Dr. S Uma Sankar, IAS, Excise Commissioner,
West Bengal
|
Managing Director
|
033-
23412702
|
033-
2221
6205
|
ec.wb-excise@nic.in
|
|
3
|
Sri Gautam Ghosh
|
General
|
033-
|
033-
|
igkg65@gmail.com
|
|
|
|
Manager -
|
23412703
|
2221
|
|
|
|
|
Operation
|
|
6205
|
|
|
4
|
Sri Kunal Biswas
|
General
|
033-
|
033-
|
dcit.wb-excise@nic.in
|
|
|
|
Manager -
|
23412704
|
2221
|
|
|
|
|
System
|
|
6205
|
|
|
5
|
Sri Hari Pada Purkait
|
Chief Finance &
|
033-
|
|
purkaitharipada@gmail.com
|
|
|
|
Accounts
|
23412705
|
|
|
|
|
Officer
|
|
|