NGO points an accusing finger at Excise officials

The Hindu: Visakhapatnam: Wednesday, 17 December 2014.

Officials of the Prohibition and Excise Department seem to be hand in glove with the owner of Vinayaka Wine Shop in Relli Veedhi in the Old Town area, president of Chaitanya Sravanthi S. Shirin Rahman has said.

Women of Relli Veedhi had agitated for 72 days demanding that the wine shop be shifted from the area as their men were exhausting their money by consuming liquor and ill-treating them. The shop was also creating a law and order problem in the area, she said.

The women, with the support of Chaitanya Sravanthi, a voluntary organisation, and other women’s organisations had even gone to the extent of falling at the feet of the authorities concerned, but the latter remained unmoved by their plight, Dr. Shirin Rahman said at a media conference on Tuesday.

She said that information obtained under the RTI Act had revealed that the licence for the wine shop was issued in the name of Seetha Appa Rao, an employee of the shop. The wine shop was, in fact, owned by Mohan Rao in benami. She said that the Excise officials had failed to verify the property of the prospective licence-holder before issuing the licence. She alleged that Appa Rao had shown the property that did not belong to him as his own in the affidavit. “How can an employee working in a wine shop possess so much wealth?” she asked. Dr. Shirin Rahman said that the wine shop dealer had also misled the Minister on the issue.