No ‘kick’ in this! Excise wing staggers to achieve revenue targets

Hyderabad: Setting unreachably high annual targets and increasing prices of liquor is one thing and giving the excise staff a workable plan of action in the light of market reality and in line with the two-year excise policy is quite another.

This explains why the Telangana Excise Department has been struggling to achieve annual targets set by the state government for revenue through liquor sales over the last two years. The revenues from liquor sales have remained static in 2024 and 2025, far from any semblance of growth.

Top officials of the Excise wing say the main reason for this dismal show, or no show rather, is the lack of a plan of action plan over the past two years.

Although the government has increased the prices of beer and alcohol-based liquor, officials conceded that the growth in revenues in 2025 has not been significant, when compared to the figures of 2024. “The government had set the target of 15 per cent growth in liquor revenues every year; yet, in reality, it has not been more than two or three per cent in the last two years”, officials said. As for the current financial year of 2025-2026, the CAG report has already pointed to the shortfall in revenues from liquor sales against the targets. The CAG report said that only 48 per cent of the targeted revenues were generated till October (only five months were left thereafter to complete the 2025-2026 financial year). During this financial year, the total revenue target was Rs 27,600 crore. “A slight increase of only 2 per cent was registered when compared October in the previous financial year”, officials said.

Till the end of October, the department could generate only Rs 13,290 crore. However, thanks to the festivals, the state registered high sales of liquor in October.

During the two-year excise policy between December 2023 and November 2024 and between December 2024 and November 2025, the total liquor sales per year remained more or less the same. The Excise Department did not achieve any growth in liquor sales.

The latest two-year period of the new excise policy started on December 1, 2025; it ends on November 2027.

The state government has been setting annual revenue targets for every financial year, but the excise wing has failed to achieve the targets over the last two Excise years.

The upshot is that the key revenue generating department has been struggling from the first month of the current financial year to generate revenues as per the targets of the government.