Cuttack: Odisha, West Bengal and Chhattisgarh Excise authorities have emphasized on Joint Enforcement in Border area, Identification of routes of Illicit Trafficking, Intelligence sharing, Coordination between Excise Staff of Bordering districts and Mirroring of the Check Posts on either side of Inter-State Border in view of forthcoming simultaneous General Election to Lok Sabha and State Legislative Assembly.
Excise Commissioner, Odisha Narasingha Bhol held Inter-State Border Cooperation Meetings with his counterparts of West Bengal and Chhattisgarh.
He was joined by Kaushik Bhattacharya, Excise Commissioner, West Bengal and R. Sangeeta, Excise Commissioner, Chhattisgarh.
Special Excise Commissioner, West Bengal, Joint Excise Commissioners, Policy, Enforcement, Deputy Commissioners of Excise, Sambalpur & Berhampur, Deputy Excise Commissioners, Bastar & Mahasamund also attended the meeting.
The Superintendents of Excise of Mayurbhanj, Balasore, Sundargarh, Jharsuguda, Bargarh, Nuapada, Kalahandi, Nabarangpur, Koraput and Malkangiri along with their counterparts from Chhattisgarh & West Bengal took part in the discussion.
The officers were instructed to form Whatsapp Group and share the intelligence to catch hold of culprits, checking of vehicles and joint enforcement in the bordering areas.
Shrimati Sangeeta, Excise Commissioner, Chhattisgarh instructed Excise officials to extend full cooperation during joint raids and check smuggling of liquor & drugs.
The functioning of Inter-State Border Excise Check Posts along border was reviewed. Wherever necessary, additional Check Posts should be established, opined Excise Commissioners of three States.
It is pertinent to mention here that five Excise Check Posts are functioning on Odisha side of the border.
Similarly, five Check Posts are functioning on West Bengal side. Seventeen Check Posts are functioning in Odisha bordering the State of Chhattisgarh against Eleven Check Posts by Chhattisgarh State.
Excise Commissioner, West Bengal, Shri Kaushik Bhattacharya was requested to extend cooperation in conducting raids to catch hold of Kingpins of illicit liquor and illicit Brown Sugar trade and was assured of similar cooperation from Excise Officials of Mayurbhanj and Balasore districts as and when the Excise officials of West Bengal need to conduct raid in Odisha, especially in the bordering districts.
During checking at Inter-State border Check Posts; 14,60,078.8 Litres of liquor valued at Rs. 2,94,50,000, 857 KGs of Ganja valued at Rs. 85,70,000 and 178 number of vehicles have been seized by Excise Officials of Odisha so far.