Patna, June 11: A team of four professionals huddled over their computer screens at the headquarters of the registration, excise and prohibition department in Patna on Monday, monitoring every aspect to ensure total prohibition in the state.
They did everything from deciding on the number of breathalysers and digital locks to be procured, to putting out tenders for related services. They oversaw the setting-up of an integrated excise management system (IEMS) and also identified the areas that need to be strengthened for smooth implementation of prohibition. Senior government officials advised them.
The team is from KPMG, a company in the Netherlands. They are to become the epicentre of prohibition in the state. Acting as consultants to the state government in implementing the ban, the company is here on a 72-month contract to transform the department into a modern facility.
"We came here in December 2015, when the new excise policy was enacted for partial prohibition from the new financial year," said KPMG senior project management consultant and team leader Shakeel R. Swer, a resident of Shillong.
The team will oversee tenders for selection of an agency for design, supply, installation, commissioning, operations and maintenance of IEMS, digital locks, breathalysers, establishing an excise control room and ensuring computerisation of the entire department.
Shakeel and his team this was a challenging job. It became more challenging when the public response prompted the government to implement total prohibition.
"We had to rework everything, including our detailed project report, request for proposals and tenders for several things," said Shakeel. "Thankfully, all was done in a short time."
KPMG team members said they needed breathalysers to detect alcohol consumption. It was tedious work as the equipment needed to be sophisticated with regard to tampering and misuse by the police or excise officials.
"The one we evaluated and selected has an in-built GPS device to mark the location of its use," said a KPMG consultant. "It is so sophisticated that it clocks readings the moment we take it close to any open liquor bottle."
It was the team's idea to procure digital locks to clamp on tankers, containers and trucks ferrying spirit and liquor across the state. This has been successful in checking pilferage.
The team is now piloting a project to have full-body truck scanners to trace bootlegging and smuggling of liquor across the state. This will enable them to trace alcohol hidden inside any goods vehicle, effortlessly. They will be deployed at integrated check-posts on the state borders.
KPMG is at present working on a project to get the data centre for the entire department in place.
Registration being an integral and important part in terms of revenue for the department, the firm is monitoring the digitisation and indexing of land documents. HP (Hewlett-Packard) has the contract to scanning millions of documents lying with the land registry offices across the state.
When asked how they were going to accomplish the tantamount task of implementing liquor ban in the state, a team member said: "With the help of excise department principal secretary K.K. Pathak and other officials."
