Posted: Thursday, July 23 2009. 14:00

Wine Importers Form Association…Finally

Formation of the association was long overdue; delWine and the Indian Wine Academy have been suggestive and supportive of the idea for a long time. But the importers, being new in a trade fraught with severe punitive measures, are a fragmented and defensive lot who believe in offering the second cheek when slapped once. After being slapped over a hundred times (read issues), they finally seem to be getting their act together and have at least gone beyond the first step of holding a meeting followed up by another and yet another meeting.

The association had been initially named L1F1 Licensees Association, due to lack of time and imagination on the part of the members to find a more appropriate name. However, they have chosen to put up a brave and seemingly united front without worrying too much about the importance of the name at the moment. The name may not be reminiscent of H1N1 to quite a few people but it does bring to mind memories of a corked wine.

Mukul Mehra, owner of Global Tax Free Traders, who is quite a senior and respected individual with a lot of knowledge about the government import procedures on alcoholic products, has been nominated as the President. While Debjit Dasgupta of Ace Bevergez is the Hony. Secretary, Rohit Mehra of Mohan Bros. and Arun Kumar of Aspri are the Joint Secretaries. Gurinder Pal Singh, owner of Dhall Foods has been nominated as the Vice President, with Sunil Khanna of EMBASSY INTL as the Treasurer.

The main objective would be to fight the government over rationalities of its decisions and have a meaningful dialogue to explain the frivolous procedures that set back the business many notches. Several executive decisions border on illegality, it is generally felt. Business in Mumbai was suspended for 14 months out of the last 24 months, claims Sanjay Menon, owner of Sonarys. Bangalore went through 2-3 months of dry run while Delhi lost 6 weeks of business this year. Gone are the days when one used to wait for the annual policies to be announced. While Haryana and Punjab may be a few exceptions, Delhi, Maharashtra, Goa and Chennai are all known to have contributed in pushing the wine business in disarray by announcing policies any time of the year, at times even on a retrospective basis.

It is of course not easy to form a unified front because of the conflicting interests of bonders and non bonders, wine and spirit trade, as also the problem of Indian vs. imported products. While UB may have interest in all the areas, many of the small importers are too small and new to be able to be vocal in their views. Through the association, such diverse views can be addressed and if need be, legal recourse can also be sought, if considered prudent by the body.

The diversity in opinion is also evident in the fact that Brindco, the leading importer has not joined the association for reasons not clear to the fellow importers. One reason could be that the company deals in all aspects of the wine and spirit products- imported and Indian. It would make a lot more sense, if the company were to be a member too. But, if the association sticks out the initial glitches sincerely and can make an impact, it is a matter of time that Brindco will be co-opted into the association, making it stronger.

‘There are many trivial sounding issues like holograms collected by the distributors on behalf of the customers for which the buyer usually leaves blank letter heads to be used as authority. What to do when the restaurant places an order and arbitrarily refuses to accept the goods that have been de-bonded and are out of the excise warehouse,’ asks Debjit Dasgupta. ‘Seventeen people have joined in the first instance,’ he confirms.

The group has already met senior excise officials who have given a sympathetic hearing which incidentally has changed its earlier proposed name to the Delhi Foreign Liquor Association-rather unfortunate as wine does not find a mention in its name-indicating that not only the consumer and the government, but the importers have not yet learnt to have the passion or the respect for the wine. Says Debjit sheepishly, ‘this is just the beginning. We have not had a chance to think seriously about the name as a few other issues had to be addressed. Before we open the bank account, we shall hopefully include wine in the name.’ 

It is important that anyone who has an interest in wine must be encouraged to join the association and despite their individual differences and personality conflicts, they must all come to this joint platform and work towards expanding the market and make the business more pleasant.