TASMAC employees in Tamil Nadu get a salary hike of ₹2,000
The State government has announced a hike of ₹2,000 for all the employees working in the Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation (TASMAC) with effect from April 1, said V. Senthilbalaji, Minister for Electricity, Prohibition and Excise in the Assembly on Tuesday (April 22, 2025).
In a reply to a question during the demand for grants for the Prohibition and Excise Department, he said the hike would be across the board for all 23,629 employees, comprising 6,567 supervisors, 14,636 sellers and 2,426 assistant sellers. The hike will result in an additional outgo of ₹64.08 crore per month for the State.
The State government had earned a revenue of ₹48,344 crore for the fiscal 2024-25 (subject to reconciliation) through excise and value added tax of liquor. It has brought in the Tamil Nadu Prohibition (Amendment) Act, 2024, to curb distribution of illicit liquor in the State. The amendment has increased punishment and has accorded powers to confiscate all movable properties used in committing the offence and to seal unlicensed places used for consumption of illicit liquor.
The State government, to curb the use of drugs and narcotics, has provided 50 hand-held oral fluid drug testing devices to the officials of the Enforcement Bureau of the Criminal Investigation Unit (EBCID). The hand-held devices will assist in faster detection of drug users and have increased the number of police awards given by the Chief Minister Police medal to 15 in 2025-26.
The Prohibition and Excise department would be computerising the EBCID by deploying digital forensic tools for web analytics, and OSINT (Out of the Box) tools, to control online drug smuggling.
A dedicated web portal for the EBCID would be launched for creating database of the criminal investigations for which an amount of ₹35 lakh has been allotted, Mr. Senthilbalaji said.
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Indian Express
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Speaking in the assembly, Sarma referred to the October 2024 judgement of the Supreme Court in which a majority of a five-member Constitutional Bench headed by then Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud had upheld the constitutional validity of Section 6A of the Citizenship Act, which makes March 24, 1971 the cut-off date for citizenship in Assam. 'Four judges said 1971 is the cut-off date. But one thing the Supreme Court said repeatedly was that the people brought after 1971 should not be spared in any way. They will have to be deported… In that judgement, the Supreme Court gave the Assam government a sweeping power… The Supreme Court in this judgement affirmed that the 1950 expulsion Act remains valid and operative. That means for expelling foreigners, the government does not have to go to tribunals. The 1950 Act says that if the DC says that prima facie this person is a foreigner, he can be evicted from the state of Assam,' Sarma said. 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The Hindu
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