தமிழகத்தின் முதல் Scientific corruption ஆரம்பமானது 1981ல்தான். ஆரம்பித்தது MGR.
முழு ஆதாரங்களும் 1981-87 வரை நடந்த ஊழலும் MGR இன் இரட்டை வேடங்களும்
ஆதாரங்களுடன் 👇
The anti-corruption warrior had run a reputedly clean government in his first term (June 1977-February 1980) but it proved too good to last. The day on which TASMAC was incorporated as a company, 23 May 1983, can be regarded as the founding date of Tamil Nadu’s scientific system of political corruption. Vesting TASMAC with “the exclusive privilege of wholesale supply of IMFL
Indian-made foreign liquor (IMFL)
for the whole state of Tamil Nadu as per Section 17(C)(1-A)(a) of the Tamilnadu Prohibition Act 1937” proved to be an ingenious idea.
In The Image Trap, a study of what made MGR immensely popular among “the subaltern classes”, MSS Pandian argues that, contrary to the image of the charismatic actor-and-politician being openhanded to a fault, the AIADMK government under him regularly “taxed the poor (and the middle classes) to profit the rich”. Noting that the poor contributed quite heavily to excise revenue, he points out that largely as a consequence of the MGR government relaxing the prohibition on liquor consumption, the share of excise in the total revenue of the state rose sharply, from 1 per cent during 1975-1980 to nearly 14 per cent during 1980-1985. And 80 per cent of this excise revenue came from country liquor, which was mostly consumed by the urban and rural poor. Pandian’s comment is telling:
“The manner in which the AIADMK government implemented a perversely unique liquor policy, which profited the liquor manufacturers enormously, is now well-known. It allowed the liquor manufacturers to decide the price at which they would supply Indian Made Foreign Liquor...to...TASMAC...Unlike anywhere else in India, it was not the manufacturers who paid the excise duty on IMFL in Tamil Nadu but the state government, via...TASMAC. Again, the AIADMK government exempted the liquor manufacturers from paying any excise duty on rectified spirit.”
The creation of TASMAC and vesting it with a monopoly of wholesale supply of Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) was widely perceived to be an innovative way of financing the state’s welfare schemes, especially MGR’s ambitious nutritious midday meal programme of July 1982, which quickly expanded to become India’s largest in terms of beneficiaries and a model for other states. Less known at the time was the stream of illicit revenues that began to flow from the favoured owners of distilleries and breweries manufacturing the liquor into a political fund that was now at the disposal of the chief minister.
https://scroll.in/article/851760/how-did-political-corruption-begin-in-tamil-nadu-n-ram-has-some-answers
MGR came to power in 1977 and lifted prohibition four years later, only to reintroduce it now, five years afterwards. In 1981, he had changed his mind on the issue because, in the absence of free sale. bootlegging had become so widespread that the administration could no longer hold it down.
In that year, MGR had even liberalised rules for the selection and appointment of new wholesale and retail outlets, both for arrack as well as IMFL. Apart from the smell of legal liquor, there was also more than a breath of scandal that time: the MGR Government was accused of favouring certain liquor barons with licences for wholesale IMFL distribution as also for arrack-bottling plants (INDIA TODAY, October 15, 1982). Today, the MGR Government faces strikingly similar charges.
If the state Government is willing to forego an annual revenue loss of a staggering Rs 200-crore in excise revenue, it is because, apart from other things, there is also political capital to be gained. There are about a crore regular arrack drinkers, with whose wives the liquid is not popular because of the expense and the tensions it causes. MGR clearly had his eye on the women's vote which traditionally welcomes a crackdown on drinking. It also helped counter DMK allegations that he was encouraging growth of the habit in Tamil Nadu.
It had also initially appeared to some in the ruling party that the step was aimed at 'hitting MGR's former cabinet colleague, R.M. Veerappan, who had recently been sacked from the ministry. Speculation on this score was fuelled by the belief that a majority of the arrack vendors were close to the former minister. In fact, AIADMK leaders felt that the chief minister decided to come down heavily on the arrack trade only after first ridding himself of Veerappan.
But the design was much more devious than most people realised. In a state where Swaminathan forcefully talked of enforcing the Directive Principles of the Constitution, the Excise Department's actions seemed totally at variance. While, on the one hand, the department was ordering closure of all arrack shops and, bottling plants, on the other, it was issuing new licences for outlets of IMFL. Between September and December last year, the Excise Department appointed 978 new IMFL dealers in addition to the 953 who already existed to bring the total to 1,931 for the entire state (see chart).
"We are bound to ensure total prohibition. It is a commitment our leader MGR gave to the people of Tamil Nadu."
V.V. Swaminathan minister for excise and information
Charged Karunanidhi: "Liquor trade means money. This Government has made frequent changes in the excise policy only to help a few people. We want total prohibition but under the new law, rich people and expensive liquor have been left out. It is patently obvious that it has been designed to help the IMFL trade.
Indeed, the entire business was handled peculiarly, and particularly odd was the method of selecting new IMFL retail vendors. Applications for licences were invited through advertisements as early as May 1985 and more than 1,900 people responded before the last date, July 31, 1985. At that point, the question of introducing prohibition had not even been raised.
Allotments were to have been made by January 1986 but, instead, the department sat tight on them until September 1986. This unexplained delay strengthened the allegation of the local liquor trade that the MGR Government was under pressure from the IMFL lobby, led by a north India-based 'distillery, to close down the arrack trade and aid the sales of their own products.
Suspicion grew to certainty when the selection of new IMFL vends got underway along with the ban on arrack sales. Moreover, the selection process could only be described as extraordinary. Instead of auctioning outlets to the highest bidder, as is the normal practice with most state governments, the MGR Government preferred to prescribe a beggarly fee of Rs 20,000 per shop.
If auctions had been carried out, the state Government could have earned about Rs 20 crore, assuming a rough going rate of Rs 2 lakh per vend. But by going in for a small flat fee, the state has inexplicably settled to lose Rs 18 crore. Since the excise commissioner was the final arbiter to decide on allotment, inevitably, over a dozen parties have gone to the courts questioning his orders and seeking redress.
As if the gross violation of all established norms in deciding on the sellers was itself not enough, what was also shocking was the sheer number of licences issued. Madras district (population: 32.76 lakh, 1981 census), now has 412 shops selling IMFL compared to a total of 323 until last fortnight - 118 for arrack and 205 for IMFL. In Coimbatore district (population: 30.60 lakh, 1981 census), 132 new IMFL licences were issued, more than doubling the number of liquor shops to 242. The Government, it was apparent, had deliberately and with considerable forethought chosen large towns with sizeable affluent populations to site new liquor shops.
Traders in Tamil Nadu allege favouritism in the selection. According to them, every second application has been rejected on flimsy grounds. An application in Madras, for instance, was turned down because the proposed premises were near a school, That would seem fair reason, except that at least three other vendors in Madras have got the go-ahead although their locations too violate rules and are adjacent to either restaurants, places of worship or schools.
A section of the opposition parties believes that the powerful industrial and liquor lobbies from other states were also instrumental in changing the state Government policy. Tamil Nadu, with an annual production of over 700 lakh litres of raw alcohol, which is required to produce IMFL, is comparatively better placed in alcohol production as compared to other states.
However, since 500 lakh litres were being allotted for arrack production, alcohol-based industries and IMFL units were being denied their full requirement of raw alcohol. Some distilleries had made representations to the state Government on this count and some had even gone to court to get more favourable allocations. But they had had little success.
Now, with the ban on arrack production, 500 lakh litres of raw alcohol has suddenly become available. Though there is no official announcement, according to well-placed sources, the major beneficiaries are not only local industries who have been allotted an additional 150 lakh litres, but also liquor business in other states, which will get the rest. Said V. Gopalsamy, a DMK Rajya Sabha member: "The MGR Government has already made a deal under which the extra alcohol will be allotted to all the liquor manufacturing units in north and western India.
We know these units have been hobnobbing with state Government officials." He also pointed out that it was similar export of alcohol by Karnataka which led to the allegations of corruption against Chief Minister Ramakrishna Hegde's Government.
It was the inauguration of grand corruption in Tamil Nadu – a corrupt set of acts committed at the top level of government that manipulated and distorted policies (prohibition and its relaxation), institutions (TASMAC as the sole wholesale supplier of IMFL), and processes (price-rigging, sweetheart deals, nepotism) to enable leaders to benefit at the expense of the public good.
https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/indiascope/story/19870131-tamil-nadu-chief-minister-m.g.-ramachandran-reintroduced-prohibition-798461-1987-01-31
முழு ஆதாரங்களும் 1981-87 வரை நடந்த ஊழலும் MGR இன் இரட்டை வேடங்களும்
ஆதாரங்களுடன் 👇
The anti-corruption warrior had run a reputedly clean government in his first term (June 1977-February 1980) but it proved too good to last. The day on which TASMAC was incorporated as a company, 23 May 1983, can be regarded as the founding date of Tamil Nadu’s scientific system of political corruption. Vesting TASMAC with “the exclusive privilege of wholesale supply of IMFL
Indian-made foreign liquor (IMFL)
for the whole state of Tamil Nadu as per Section 17(C)(1-A)(a) of the Tamilnadu Prohibition Act 1937” proved to be an ingenious idea.
In The Image Trap, a study of what made MGR immensely popular among “the subaltern classes”, MSS Pandian argues that, contrary to the image of the charismatic actor-and-politician being openhanded to a fault, the AIADMK government under him regularly “taxed the poor (and the middle classes) to profit the rich”. Noting that the poor contributed quite heavily to excise revenue, he points out that largely as a consequence of the MGR government relaxing the prohibition on liquor consumption, the share of excise in the total revenue of the state rose sharply, from 1 per cent during 1975-1980 to nearly 14 per cent during 1980-1985. And 80 per cent of this excise revenue came from country liquor, which was mostly consumed by the urban and rural poor. Pandian’s comment is telling:
“The manner in which the AIADMK government implemented a perversely unique liquor policy, which profited the liquor manufacturers enormously, is now well-known. It allowed the liquor manufacturers to decide the price at which they would supply Indian Made Foreign Liquor...to...TASMAC...Unlike anywhere else in India, it was not the manufacturers who paid the excise duty on IMFL in Tamil Nadu but the state government, via...TASMAC. Again, the AIADMK government exempted the liquor manufacturers from paying any excise duty on rectified spirit.”
The creation of TASMAC and vesting it with a monopoly of wholesale supply of Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) was widely perceived to be an innovative way of financing the state’s welfare schemes, especially MGR’s ambitious nutritious midday meal programme of July 1982, which quickly expanded to become India’s largest in terms of beneficiaries and a model for other states. Less known at the time was the stream of illicit revenues that began to flow from the favoured owners of distilleries and breweries manufacturing the liquor into a political fund that was now at the disposal of the chief minister.
https://scroll.in/article/851760/how-did-political-corruption-begin-in-tamil-nadu-n-ram-has-some-answers
MGR came to power in 1977 and lifted prohibition four years later, only to reintroduce it now, five years afterwards. In 1981, he had changed his mind on the issue because, in the absence of free sale. bootlegging had become so widespread that the administration could no longer hold it down.
In that year, MGR had even liberalised rules for the selection and appointment of new wholesale and retail outlets, both for arrack as well as IMFL. Apart from the smell of legal liquor, there was also more than a breath of scandal that time: the MGR Government was accused of favouring certain liquor barons with licences for wholesale IMFL distribution as also for arrack-bottling plants (INDIA TODAY, October 15, 1982). Today, the MGR Government faces strikingly similar charges.
If the state Government is willing to forego an annual revenue loss of a staggering Rs 200-crore in excise revenue, it is because, apart from other things, there is also political capital to be gained. There are about a crore regular arrack drinkers, with whose wives the liquid is not popular because of the expense and the tensions it causes. MGR clearly had his eye on the women's vote which traditionally welcomes a crackdown on drinking. It also helped counter DMK allegations that he was encouraging growth of the habit in Tamil Nadu.
It had also initially appeared to some in the ruling party that the step was aimed at 'hitting MGR's former cabinet colleague, R.M. Veerappan, who had recently been sacked from the ministry. Speculation on this score was fuelled by the belief that a majority of the arrack vendors were close to the former minister. In fact, AIADMK leaders felt that the chief minister decided to come down heavily on the arrack trade only after first ridding himself of Veerappan.
But the design was much more devious than most people realised. In a state where Swaminathan forcefully talked of enforcing the Directive Principles of the Constitution, the Excise Department's actions seemed totally at variance. While, on the one hand, the department was ordering closure of all arrack shops and, bottling plants, on the other, it was issuing new licences for outlets of IMFL. Between September and December last year, the Excise Department appointed 978 new IMFL dealers in addition to the 953 who already existed to bring the total to 1,931 for the entire state (see chart).
"We are bound to ensure total prohibition. It is a commitment our leader MGR gave to the people of Tamil Nadu."
V.V. Swaminathan minister for excise and information
Charged Karunanidhi: "Liquor trade means money. This Government has made frequent changes in the excise policy only to help a few people. We want total prohibition but under the new law, rich people and expensive liquor have been left out. It is patently obvious that it has been designed to help the IMFL trade.
Indeed, the entire business was handled peculiarly, and particularly odd was the method of selecting new IMFL retail vendors. Applications for licences were invited through advertisements as early as May 1985 and more than 1,900 people responded before the last date, July 31, 1985. At that point, the question of introducing prohibition had not even been raised.
Allotments were to have been made by January 1986 but, instead, the department sat tight on them until September 1986. This unexplained delay strengthened the allegation of the local liquor trade that the MGR Government was under pressure from the IMFL lobby, led by a north India-based 'distillery, to close down the arrack trade and aid the sales of their own products.
Suspicion grew to certainty when the selection of new IMFL vends got underway along with the ban on arrack sales. Moreover, the selection process could only be described as extraordinary. Instead of auctioning outlets to the highest bidder, as is the normal practice with most state governments, the MGR Government preferred to prescribe a beggarly fee of Rs 20,000 per shop.
If auctions had been carried out, the state Government could have earned about Rs 20 crore, assuming a rough going rate of Rs 2 lakh per vend. But by going in for a small flat fee, the state has inexplicably settled to lose Rs 18 crore. Since the excise commissioner was the final arbiter to decide on allotment, inevitably, over a dozen parties have gone to the courts questioning his orders and seeking redress.
As if the gross violation of all established norms in deciding on the sellers was itself not enough, what was also shocking was the sheer number of licences issued. Madras district (population: 32.76 lakh, 1981 census), now has 412 shops selling IMFL compared to a total of 323 until last fortnight - 118 for arrack and 205 for IMFL. In Coimbatore district (population: 30.60 lakh, 1981 census), 132 new IMFL licences were issued, more than doubling the number of liquor shops to 242. The Government, it was apparent, had deliberately and with considerable forethought chosen large towns with sizeable affluent populations to site new liquor shops.
Traders in Tamil Nadu allege favouritism in the selection. According to them, every second application has been rejected on flimsy grounds. An application in Madras, for instance, was turned down because the proposed premises were near a school, That would seem fair reason, except that at least three other vendors in Madras have got the go-ahead although their locations too violate rules and are adjacent to either restaurants, places of worship or schools.
A section of the opposition parties believes that the powerful industrial and liquor lobbies from other states were also instrumental in changing the state Government policy. Tamil Nadu, with an annual production of over 700 lakh litres of raw alcohol, which is required to produce IMFL, is comparatively better placed in alcohol production as compared to other states.
However, since 500 lakh litres were being allotted for arrack production, alcohol-based industries and IMFL units were being denied their full requirement of raw alcohol. Some distilleries had made representations to the state Government on this count and some had even gone to court to get more favourable allocations. But they had had little success.
Now, with the ban on arrack production, 500 lakh litres of raw alcohol has suddenly become available. Though there is no official announcement, according to well-placed sources, the major beneficiaries are not only local industries who have been allotted an additional 150 lakh litres, but also liquor business in other states, which will get the rest. Said V. Gopalsamy, a DMK Rajya Sabha member: "The MGR Government has already made a deal under which the extra alcohol will be allotted to all the liquor manufacturing units in north and western India.
We know these units have been hobnobbing with state Government officials." He also pointed out that it was similar export of alcohol by Karnataka which led to the allegations of corruption against Chief Minister Ramakrishna Hegde's Government.
It was the inauguration of grand corruption in Tamil Nadu – a corrupt set of acts committed at the top level of government that manipulated and distorted policies (prohibition and its relaxation), institutions (TASMAC as the sole wholesale supplier of IMFL), and processes (price-rigging, sweetheart deals, nepotism) to enable leaders to benefit at the expense of the public good.
https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/indiascope/story/19870131-tamil-nadu-chief-minister-m.g.-ramachandran-reintroduced-prohibition-798461-1987-01-31
