panaji the excise department is taking a tough stance against illegal liquor sale during the lockdown with 200 retail shops sealed in the past few days for violationsa majority of these liquor outlets that were sealed are located in pernem taluka 38 followed by salcete 29 and bardez 25excise commissioner amit satija said the retail shops were sealed following complaints of illegal sale by the licenseesit was noticed that in pernem being a border town with neighbouring maharashtra the illegal sale of alcohol has been quite high he saidthese 200 shops are in addition to the wholesale units sealed a fortnight ago across the state amid suspicion that licensees would illegally divert their stockssince the lockdown satija said the department has received 72 complaints of illegal liquor sale while 15 licenses have been suspended since march 22the department also seized 20729 litres of alcohol since march 26some cases of seizures entailed illegal sale of alcohol without a license he said in such instances the liquor stock was seized while licenses were suspended of those violating licence normson wednesday a certain quantity of alcohol was seized in sanguem which was being smuggled out of goa in a van that had arrived with vegetables from karnatakasatija said it has come to their notice that delivery vehicles entering the state are used for smuggling liquor hence officials have been directed to thoroughly check the vehicles exiting the state at the border checkposts he saidin view of the lockdown retailers have adopted various methods to sell liquor sources said some retailers sell liquor through their private vehicles which are parked in the vicinity of their storesregular customers know where to buy their drinks the source saidthe alcohol that is seized is later auctioned however in some cases it is released in the custody of the licensee if he is able to justify that the quantum of the stock is his possession at the time of the raid was not illegally held the licensee is also made to pay a penalty for the samemeanwhile the excise department is expected to post a revenue loss about 50 to 60 for the month of april owing to the ban on liquor sale an official said usually the revenue collection for april is in the range of rs 3040 crore he saidwe havent assessed the exact loss of revenue yet but it will be more than 50 he saidthere are 11242 licenses of various kinds issued by the excise department of which the maximum 3924 are in bardez followed by salcete 1898 and tiswadi 1405