Survey on Excise duty Labels/ Stamps - 3

Part-3

Written  by :  N.R. Jayaraman

The Tender specification contain the following specification  for the supply of Holograms which will further be affixed on the Excise Label .
Hologram  
1) Hot Stamping Scratch type
2) Size: 15 mm x 15 mm
Hologram Master
a) State Emblem
b) Multi Channel Effect
c) Concealed Image
d) Kinetic effect and Guilloche Pattern
e) Covert Laser Readable Image
f) Micro- text
g) Nano-text
h) Raster Image
i) Any other security feature as may be found suitable.

In addition to Punjab Govt, the Union territory of Chhattisgarh Excise department too issued tender notification which in all respects were same like the Tender specification of Punjab.

Karnataka 

The Karnataka Govt Excise Department is the only known state that issues the Paper based Excise Labels with  Intaglio printing. They have 2 D bar code, Unique serial no invisible printing, Guilloche design, Intaglio printing and signature of the issuing authority on the printed Label.  They are also issued  in different colors - for use on IMP, 350 ml, 750 ml bottles. 
The three categories of Excise duty stamps issued are:


The production of Liquor Bottles from the year 2002-03 onwards are in the following order. The figures given in the Table are based on the production of  Liquor bottles as obtained from the excise department officials.  No Excise duty Label is affixed on the  filled with Beer bottles.


The above data will show that there is steep  increase in the production/ consumption of Liquor Bottles from the base year 2002- 03 in the order of  75 % to 562 %. This naturally reflect on the requirement of Excise Labels too. 

The Excise duty Labels are procured by the Karnataka Govt by floating Tenders. The Karnataka  Excise duty Label contains several security features some of which are shown in the illustration below. However the specification for the Hologram states the following:

Hologram Master type: High security Dot matrix
1) Type of Hologram: Hot stamping
2) Size : 14 mm x 14 mm
3) Place in the Excise Label: Center
4) Feature of Hologram:
a) State Emblem
b) Multi Channel effect
c) Concealed Image
d) Kinetic effect and Guilloche Pattern
e) Covert Laser readable image
f) Micro letters 

 
Karnataka Excise duty Label showing various elements 
of Security features as indicated in the Tender 

Based on the Production of Liquor Bottles, the requirement of   Excise duty Labels/ Stamps have  been worked out as indicated below.


As per the Excise dept officials the  production cost of the Excise Label appears to be around 5-6 paisa while they are issued to the distilleries at the rate of 10 paisa per label for affixing on the Liquor Bottles produced.


Kerala 
Excise department in Kerala also use Holographic Excise Labels whose production cost appears to be around 14-15 paisa. Only one variety of stamps is issued for use on all bottles. As per the projection the requirement is expected to go up by 17 %. Th production figure of various varieties of  Liquor is is given below.

The above data will show that there is gradual increase in the production/ consumption of Liquor Bottles from the base year 2002- 03 in the order of  10 % to 56 %. This naturally reflect on the requirement of Excise Labels too. We could not get the sample Labels or the specifications if any that has been floated as Tender inquiry for the supply of  Security Holographic Labels.

Based on the Production of Liquor Bottles, the requirement of  Labels/ Stamps have  been worked out as indicated below.

 The Excise dept in Kerala has been contemplating to introduce Holograms as Labels  with a facility to trace a bottle to the respective outlet from where it was sold. The proposed Hologram will include almost all security features now available on currency notes.  According to the officials these new  labels when put to use  would be impossible to replicate. Each bottle of Liquor sold will have to have this Hologram Label affixed over them.  Whether  they will be Excise duty Label or security featured Holographic Label is not correctly known. Whatever it is, the requirement of the Label will generate business to the Printers.
End Note:- Based on the  data which appeared in Sify Finance news dated 24-08-2010, the following comparative statement has been generated to project  the   requirement of Excise duty Stamps/ Labels in the coming years. 
Important - Disclaimer: The writer does not assume responsibility for the data given for various states. All those have been obtained in personal meetings with various officials and the Print outs that we received, but were not signed even though some were hand written and given to us. Some information was also obtained from certain sites in internet.  Many officials in the Excise department were not willing to supply us the official copies as they considered the data to be confidential data.   However  the findings have been reproduced based on the data that we got in person, and in good faith though there is absolutely no reason to doubt that the data supplied to us will be incorrect.  At the most they may have some error margins.   The data  error margins could be 5 - 10 % as conversion from cases to bottles or bulk liters to bottles were difficult to work out since each state worked out the data  in their own  fashion. 
........to be continued