Chennai, Nov 11:
Tamil Nadu Prohibition and Excise Minister K. Vignesh has said the government’s priority is to curb alcohol consumption through sustained public awareness campaigns, describing the annual declaration of high festival liquor sales as a matter of shame rather than an administrative achievement.
Responding to queries on Tasmac recording sales of over Rs 441 crore during Deepavali, the minister questioned why surge figures are routinely celebrated as milestones every year.
Vignesh emphasized that the administration will roll out targeted psychological interventions and community de-addiction initiatives to discourage alcohol dependency, revealing plans to establish rehabilitation and de-addiction centres across all 234 Assembly constituencies in the state.
Addressing the bottle buy-back scheme introduced on November 1, Vignesh conceded that only around 53 to 54 per cent of empty liquor bottles have been returned to retail outlets so far.
Acknowledging operational confusion and storage constraints reported by staff at several older Tasmac shops, he assured that logistic bottlenecks would be resolved soon.