OSBC appoints technical consultant

Orissa State Beverages Corporation (OSBC), the government owned liquor company, has appointed a technical consultant who will interpret the changing excise laws and rules, prepare guidelines for the inward movement and storage of liquor, and develop formats for ledger entry in a systematic way.

These guidelines will be sent to the law department for vetting after they are framed, official sources said.

“We have appointed a technical consultant to prepare guidelines for inward movement and storage of liquor, interprete the various excise laws and rules to help the growth of the organisation”, S P Misra, managing director, OSBC told Business Standard.

OSBC also plans to appoint a full time Chartered Accountant (CA) for taking up depo audit to prevent pilferages at the depo level.

This comes in the wake of increasing volume of transaction being handled by the corporation for last few years. While it achieved a turnover of Rs 108.78 crore during 2007-08, the net profit reached Rs 37.37 crore.

Though the volume of transaction is increasing at a higher rate, the corporation is suffering from crunch of manpower. This was pointed out by the performance audit of the corporation for the year ending 31st March 2008.

OSBC has been facing acute shortage of manpower. While senior class-1 posts like General Manager (technical) and General Manager (administration) are lying vacant, a number of class-II officers’ posts at depo level have also not been filled up.

Meanwhile, as a measure to augment its revenue, the corporation has started the process of delisting of the suppliers. Accordingly, any stock kept in the depos beyond the stipulated period is being charged at the rate of Rs 5 per case compared to Re 1 earlier.

Similarly, the processing fee for export has been raised to 2 percent of the value from 1 percent earlier. During the first quarter of the current fiscal, the corporation was able to earn a net profit of Rs 5.54 crore which is 35 percent higher than the same period in the previous fiscal.