Goa government should modify its licence fee on the manufacturing of beer, which is currently charged uniformly, the state’s apex commerce body has said.
Goa Chamber of Commerce and Industries (GCCI) in its pre-budget memorandum has said that the licence fees should be charged on the production capacity of the beer manufacturing units.
“The licence fee of Rs five lakhs for manufacture of Beer is uniformly charged across the board to all the Breweries irrespective of their size and sales volumes. It is requested that the licence fee may be charged depending upon sale volume per annum,”the memorandum reads.
The memorandum was submitted to Goa Chief Minister Digambar Kamat, who also handles finance portfolio in the state.
GCCI has suggested that for the minimum capacity of six lakh cases per annum, licence fee of Rs 50,000 should be charged for those with high capacity of 24 lakh cases and above, Rs five lakh should be charged.
“This will encourage setting up of small breweries in Goa,”the memorandum reads.
The body has also recommended that bottling fee of Re 0.30 per bottle of beer charged should be scrapped.
“There is no bottling fee on beer imported into the state of Goa,”GCCI has pointed out adding that there is an urgent need to provide level playing field to all the parties by removing the bottling fee.
“Any loss of revenue on account of removal of Bottling Fees could be offset by increasing the excise duty by Re.050 per bulk litre,”the memorandum says.
GCCI has said that the levy of bottling fee also becomes a burden to local units particularly when the products are exported to other states.