Jamshaid Ashraf’s Contributions – Excise Department
Jamshaid Ashraf was the Minister of Excise and Prohibition, (State, Independent Charge) from 2008 to 2010. During this tenure, he undertook some massive and very bold steps to cut down on the existing corruption, as well as the dangerous availability of illicit liquor that had been leading to hundreds of deaths and were leading to a drainage on the State Revenue.
- Declared War on Illicit Liquor
- Illicit Liquor was a massive problem when he took over this portfolio. There were many deaths every year reported as being caused by consumption of cheap illicit liquor. Additionally, this illicit liquor was also hurting the State revenue collection, as this was not taxed. The problem with tackling this issue was that there was a very strong liquor mafia involved, and people were just too scared of taking them on. Jamshaid, on the other hand, without wasting any time, got busy taking them head on.
- Collected data that showed there were 5,500 official shops, but over 30,000 illegal shops in which illegal liquor was either manufactured and sold, or brought in from UP and sold
- He bought 16 new vehicles for the department to assist in conducting raids. He also strengthened the enforcement roles in the department.
- With this, launching the strong new enforcement, 33 major raids and dozens of minor raids were conducted, leading to capture of multiple illicit liquor tankers coming in from UP as well as illicit manufacturing sites, and a total of 50,000 litres of illegal liquor was confiscated and destroyed.
- This led to a severe reduction in the deaths being caused in the State due to illegal liquor consumption.
- Increased State Revenue
- As a result of this reduction in illicit liquor, he was able to increase the Government revenue from 231 crores, to Rs. 1,000 crores in just 20 months – an increase of over 400%!
- Made the Definitive Anti Corruption Statement by Resigning from his post as a protest against Corruption
- Jamshaid unearthed massive levels of corruption in the State Beverage Corporation. He brought this to light to the then CM, Mr. Nitish Kumar, and asked for assistance in tackling this issue.
- After repeated attempts, when no response/support was received from the CM as his close people were involved in the corruption, decided to hand in the resignation and quit rather than continue in silence and be complicit in such corruption.