Jamshedpur, July 5: With the Jharkhand excise department failing to find wholesale suppliers for country-made liquor, shops in East Singhbhum is facing an acute shortage of liquor and a revenue loss worth crores.

Officials in the district excise department confirmed that shops are presently relying on supply from other districts to fulfil demands.

East Singhbhum requires more than 150 LP litres of country-made liquor per day. The non-availability has made it financially non-viable for shops to sell them at retail price.

In the current fiscal, the excise department failed to find a bidder for 30 country-made liquor shops, located in rural areas, thus resulting in massive loss of revenue each month.

The department has 37 country-made liquor shops in rural pockets.

An official in the department said that the district excise department had failed to get a wholesale supplier for the past year. According to him, the situation was not this bad the year before, as shops were auctioned to a liquor syndicate.

According to the new excise policy, the department was given the responsibility to auction the shops to retailers. “Why would anyone bid for a country-made liquor shop when there is no supplier for the product,” said a prospective bidder, on condition of anonymity.

He claimed that present supply of country-made liquor in the district is less than 50 per cent of the demand.

The non-availability of liquor and failure to get shops auctioned off also decreases the revenue of the excise department that has been given a target in excess of Rs 60 crore in this fiscal. It has also created a shortage of country-made liquor in rural areas, where it is consumed the most.

Assistant excise commissioner B.N. Mandal claimed that the excise department has started the process to find a wholesale supplier for the district, which is expected to end the present crisis.