End-to-end computerisation of Tasmac underway, HC told

Tasmac plans end-to-end computerisation for liquor bottle tracking, QR codes, and buyback scheme implementation in Tamil Nadu.

Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation (Tasmac) on Tuesday told the Madras High Court that it has planned to implement end-to-end computerisation of its working right from purchase of liquor bottles from manufacturers to resale of the empty bottles back to the same manufacturers.

A special Division Bench of Justices N. Sathish Kumar and D. Bharatha Chakravarthy was told that under the new computerised system, the private manufactuers of liquor would be required to generate and affix QR codes on each and every bottle supplied by them on wholesale basis to Tasmac.

The QR codes would be scanned by the salesmen in every retail liquor shop operated by Tasmac across the State at the time of sale and whenever the empty bottle gets returned by the consumers, the code would be scanned again in order to tally the bottles and hand them over to the manufacturers for recycling.

The Division Bench was also informed that the empty liquor bottle buy back scheme, initiated by the High Court, had so far been implemented in the Tasmac retail shops in 16 districts in the State and that steps were afoot to implement the scheme in all 38 districts by the end of April 2025.

The corporation also presented before the court the data related to the working of the empty bottle buy back scheme and the judges found that 95% of the empty bottles were being returned in most of the districts except Kanniyakumari and Tiruvarur where the return rate was only 50% and 81% respectively.

Since the court had granted special permission to Tasmac to charge ₹10 over and above the Maximum Retail Price while selling the liquor bottles and refund the money when the bottles get returned, Tasmac said it had so far collected ₹684,84,82,115 towards the bottle buyback scheme.

Of the total amount, ₹641,78,06,213 was refunded to the consumers and the balance was deposited in interest bearing accounts in various banks, Tasmac said and agreed to provide entire details regarding the exact amount that had been deposited in banks during the next hearing of the case.