Liquor bottle buyback scheme: Tasmac tells Madras HC it is considering proposal to add ₹10 refundable deposit to MRP

The Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation (TASMAC) on Friday (July 10, 2026) told the Madras High Court that it proposes to include the refundable deposit of ₹10, being collected from individual customers as part of the empty bottle buyback scheme, in the maximum retail price (MRP) of every liquor bottle.

A special Division Bench of Justices N. Sathish Kumar and D. Bharatha Chakravarthy was told that TASMAC also proposes to assign the responsibility of collection, transportation, recycling and disposal of the empty liquor bottles on the liquor manufacturers after permitting them to increase the MRP by ₹10.

Filing a status report before the Bench, TASMAC managing director K. Nanthakumar said, the corporation began examining the possibility of restructuring the existing mechanism for the empty bottle buyback scheme only on the basis of legal opinion tendered by Advocate General Vijay Narayan on June 17, 2026.

Thereafter, on June 18, 2026 TASMAC had requested the Commissioner of Prohibition and Excise to carry out necessary amendments to relevant provisions of the Tamil Nadu Prohibition Act, the Rules framed thereunder and the licence conditions applicable to Indian Made Foreign Spirit (IMFS) and beer manufacturers.

TASMAC told the court that the Commissioner of Commercial Taxes had already submitted a proposal to the State government for levy of an additional cess of ₹10 per liquor bottle as part of the MRP and also submitted a proposal to the government for consequential amendments to the tax laws.

While the proposal was under the consideration of the government, “the associations of IMFS and beer manufacturers have, in principle, agreed to undertake the responsibility for the collection of empty liquor bottles by deploying their personnel using the technology prescribed by TASMAC,” the status report read.

The court was also assured that the liquor manufacturers would be advised to adopt environmentally sound methods for disposal of empty bottles and implement a QR code based tracking mechanism to ensure that all empty bottles get collected and disposed of safely without causing harm to humans and animals.

It was the court which had ordered implementation of the empty bottle buy back scheme a couple of years ago after finding that empty bottles thrown in forest areas were causing geat physical harm to animals, especially elephants. It also took note of blood injuries suffered by rag pickers because of broken bottles.