Hyderabad: After chilled beer, premium whisky, brandy and vodka will be costlier. In a move to mobilise huge funds in the new financial year 2025-2026, the State government is ready to increase liquor prices in a month. State Excise and Prohibition wing has already made proposals to enhance the prices of premium whisky by at least 10 per cent.

Official sources said that the government was not sure to earn revenues at the expected level due to slowdown of the property registrations and other commercial activities since the beginning of this year. The first option before the government is to increase liquor prices to meet the financial requirements every month.

The huge burden of payment of interests on loans and clearing the outstanding debts every month put the government already in the dire straits and the increasing financial requirements to implement every cost intensive scheme was a big challenge to the government officials said, adding that the enhancement of liquor prices will help the government to tide over the financial crisis instantly.

“The government projected Rs 27,600 crore revenue through liquor sales as against Rs 25,617 crore revised estimates in the current financial year.

It was estimated Rs 2,000 crore more revenue from liquor sales and it would be generated only by increasing the liquor prices and the annual fee collected from the licensed liquor shops,” official sources said, highlighting that the increase of premium liquor prices will not affect the liquor sales since the targeted consumers are ready to afford.

Sources said that the contribution of premium liquor sales in the revenue generation was around 30 per cent and it would help to increase revenues through the hiking of liquor prices. The government has increased beer prices recently and it helped in generating good revenues as the chilled beer sales are high during the summer season.