Old wine, old bottle — Dream gets sour in Punjab’s corridors of babudom

That, however, was where Garg’s problems started. As he soon found out, the laws in Punjab are biased against wine-making. In a curious piece of legislation, the Punjab Sweets Act — which governs the production and blending of liquor — stipulates that a winery must blend and market fortified and table wines according to its specifications, not those of the nationally accepted Bureau of Indian Standards, which grants the ISI trademark.

ISI standards require that ethyl alcohol contents, percentage volume by volume (V/V), should be 8 to 13 for dry white, 10.5 to 15.5 for sweet white and 8 to 13 and 10.5 to 15.5 for dry red and sweet red table wines, respectively. For fortified wines, the contents should be 15.5 to 24. However, the Punjab Sweets (Manufacture) Rules, 1955, do not allow theproducers to manufacture the fortified wine with more than 17 per cent (V/V)or proof spirit not exceeding 30 degree.

In short, wine blended in Punjab cannot be sold in other states. Y.S. Ratra, Finance Commissioner (Taxation), says that such decisions are a state subject. “Punjab is not under compulsion to follow what is being done in other states. The formation of the rules depend upon different prevailing conditions in the respective states. There is no need to bring about uniformity as far as percentage of alcohol in wine-manufacturing is concerned.”

Punjab Agro-Industries Corporation’s MD A.R. Talwar describes how launching the wines posed a problem. “The state’s policies are targeted at whisky and beer, while wine is a fruit-based drink. Wholesaling and retailing of hard liquor is a major source of revenue generation; the need was never felt to reformulate policies for the sale of wine”, he says.

Retailers need a separate licence to stock and sell wine which, given the relatively low appeal of the beverage, is not a viable option. In Punjab, wineries are not allowed to open their own retail outlet. In Himachal Pradesh, by contrast, the government has relaxed norms to allow wineries to open retail outlet by depositing a Rs-500 annual fee.

Talwar is optimistic, saying the matter has been taken up with the government; he’s expecting a quick and liberal decision in favour of the wine industry.

He obviously hasn’t spoken to Ratra, whose prognosis is gloomy. “The same winery owes money to the farmers. The scope of selling wine in Punjab is limited and there is hardly any possibility of its export,” he says. How can a government consider granting tax concessions to a unit that isn’t economically viable, he asks. And his parting shot: local grape varieties aren’t fit for wine-making.

Garg points out that the economic difficulties have arisen precisely because the laws are so rigid. And as for the quality of grapes, P.S. Sarowa, senior horticulturist with the Punjab Agricultural University’s Regional Research Station in Bathinda, stresses that the Perlette variety available is `fit’ for wine production. It offers an optimum acid-sugar ratio, a prerequisite for wine-making. The crop quality regulation has improved the percentage of total soluble solids (TSS) in Perlette, making it a suitable variety for the purpose.

The problems have resulted in financial losses for Golden Agro, totalling Rs 2 crore till date. It has also experienced a six-month lockout when the company couldn’t repay a Rs 45-lakh loan taken from the Punjab Financial Corporation. The possession of the unit was restored to the partners following an interim deposit of Rs 50,000 with PFC in May this year.

Work began again, and the company now has a wine supply permit for 2,700 bulk litres on an order from Delhi. “This is the only hope for the venture to be running and clearing the debts”, says the MD.