Cheers! Two more pitchers

BANGALORE: Temperatures in the city have steadily risen over the last few days. The heat has come as a boon to the Excise Department with the beer sales in March alone recodring a 38 per cent increase with over 27 lakh cases ( one case is approximately nine litres ) sold in the state and nearly 8 lakh cases from the city alone.The excise officials has attributed this increase to the initiative of Additional Resource Mobilisation (ARM) efforts by them. Excise Commissioner Aravind Jannu told City Express said that March 2012 accounted for 27.43 lakh cases as against 19.82 lakh cases sold in March 2011 and 7,85,164 cases for Bangalore city alone.  Bangalore on the other hand, which is known for its ‘beer guzzling’ abilities, clocked in a revenue of around Rs 29 crores. “This has resulted in revenues to the tune of 101.22 crores with just beer sales in the state as against Rs 82.96 crores in the corresponding month in 2011”, LS Srinivasa Murthy, Deputy Director (Statistics) said.  He also informed that the year on year growth has been in excess of 15% per year.The department which has already exceeded, both the budgetary and revised budgetary target of Rs 9200 crores and Rs 9500 crores respectively, shared that their revenues for the fiscal year 2011-12 was Rs 9731 crores.  Adding to this, officials said that Indian Made Liquor accounted for 494.62 lakh cases in 2011-12 and beer clocked in 212.32 lakh cases in the same duration. Department officials also said that they have not issued any Bar & Restaurant licences or retail licenses in the last one year. The department are now looking forward to beat the 2012-13 budgetary expectation of Rs 10,775 crores.A quick check at some of the popular beer joints show that the increase in the prices has not affected the sales massively. “The consumption is normal,” says the manager at Toit in Indiranagar. At Opus, the price of certain beer brands has been increased by 8-10 per cent. “The sales have hit slightly,” they said.At Extreme Sports Bar, bottled beer prices have increased by 15 per cent. Pub World is yet to make any changes to its prices.