Major Scam in Microbreweries Licence Grant: Harish
Hyderabad: BRS on Wednesday alleged that the government was subjected to ‘massive irregularities’ in granting licenses to microbreweries, with former minister and deputy floor leader of the party in the Assembly, T. Harish Rao, saying that out of 110 applications received for setting up microbreweries, “25 licenses were reserved for ministerial and political quotas”.
During his chat with reporters, Harish Rao alleged that millions of rupees were collected unofficially through middlemen with a fixed ‘fee’ for the issuance of each license.
He also criticized the government for declaring a crop holiday for farmers under Singur dam, affecting agriculture in a total area of around 70,000 acres, but also issued orders to ensure water supply to brewing companies in Sangareddy district from the same reservoir.
He said the granting of licenses to microbreweries was another scam of the Congress government and “informal agreements were made to collect Rs 1.80 billion per brewery licence. While this was going on, many multinational liquor companies had written to the government repeatedly that they would stop supply due to non-payment of dues. “Internal disputes between ministers over commission sharing have led to this crisis and this could seriously impact the state revenue.”
