Bhopal, September 13, 2026: Madhya Pradesh’s spirits market is dominated by country liquor by volume and the Sagar liquor tragedy that claimed 22 lives has put this vast, price-sensitive segment under sharp scrutiny. Country liquor sales in 2025-26 stood at 13.96 crore proof litres, 64 per cent higher than IMFL volumes of 8.54 crore proof litres, making it the state’s dominant spirit category by consumption. Over the past five years, country liquor volumes have risen 55 per cent from 8.99 crore proof litres in 2020-21, while IMFL more than doubled from 4.21 crore proof litres during the same period.
Despite IMFL’s sharper growth rate, country liquor remains considerably larger by volume. The revenue arithmetic tells a different story the state earned ₹5,898 crore from country liquor in 2025-26 compared to ₹7,503 crore from IMFL, reflecting the lower per-unit value of the country liquor segment. Beer contributed another ₹2,280 crore, taking combined revenue from the three categories to ₹15,681 crore. Including licence, transportation, bottling and other fees of approximately ₹2,000 crore, total excise receipts reached ₹17,681 crore in 2025-26. The department has set a combined revenue target of ₹20,280 crore for 2026-27 nearly 15 per cent higher. An average revenue-to-volume calculation works out to approximately ₹423 per proof litre for country liquor against ₹879 per proof litre for IMFL.
The Sagar tragedy has brought into sharp focus the enforcement challenges in the vast low-cost liquor market. The spurious liquor that allegedly caused the deaths was reportedly sold for around ₹20 less than authorised products and promoted as a new brand exploiting buyers who may neither scan a QR code nor recognise a counterfeit label in rural and semi-urban settings. Investigators are examining whether methanol was mixed into the spurious liquor. “The channels through which methanol may have been procured and supplied to those involved in making the liquor are being traced,” a senior source familiar with the probe said.
Responding to questions on supply chain safeguards, Excise Commissioner Deepak Saxena said licensed liquor is tracked from the bottling stage through security-printed Excise Adhesive Labels affixed to every bottle and case. “The combination of security-printed labels and QR-code-based verification provides a technology-enabled mechanism for authentication and traceability through the supply chain,” he said. Each label carries a unique QR code providing real-time information on the manufacturing or bottling unit, brand, batch and sale price. Procured from the Security Printing Press in Hyderabad, the labels also contain anti-photocopy markings, invisible UV-sensitive printing, secret codes, micro-lettering and other security features. Red labels identify country liquor, blue labels identify IMFL and green labels identify heritage liquor.
→ UP Begins Preparations for Excise Policy 2027-28, Stakeholder Meetings from September 28→ Supreme Court Says Alcohol Prohibition Does Not End Alcoholism, Cites Gujarat’s Hooch Tragedies
Madhya Pradesh has 11 distilleries with a combined annual production capacity of 42.58 crore proof litres and 12 country liquor bottling units a scale that makes it a liquor-surplus state that also exports to other states. In 2025-26, MP exported 3.65 crore proof litres of IMFL and 4.72 crore bulk litres of beer to other states. Beer sales within the state stood at 24.60 crore bulk litres. The excise department does not prescribe category-wise revenue targets since MP’s liquor outlets are composite shops permitted to sell country liquor, IMFL and beer from a single location.
About the Author
