Canteen Stores Department

The Canteen Stores Department traces its origins to the British Raj, when the Army Canteen Board was established in India as an offshoot of the British Navy and Army Canteen Board. Although the Navy and Army Canteen Board was abolished in the UK in 1922 and was replaced by the Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes (NAAFI), its counterpart in India continued to function until 1927. The Army Canteen Board in India was established mainly to provide canteen facilities to British troops in India through grocery shops and bars run by canteen contractors.

The Army Canteen Board was liquidated in 1927 and replaced by the Canteen Contractors' Syndicate (CCS). It was floated in the form of a limited company, under government control, with its registration office at Karachi (present-day Pakistan). This company started off with a paid-up capital of ₹6 lakh (equivalent to ₹14 crore or US$1.5 million in 2026), and the shareholding was confined to the canteen contractors. The CCS functioned with reasonable efficiency until the commencement of World War II. However, after the heavy buildup of the British troops in India, the CCS could no longer cope with the situation. Therefore, on 1 July 1942, the Government of India made use of the specific provision in Services (India) under the Directorate of Wholesale Trade and Indian Canteen Corps to handle the retail trade in operational areas. Canteen suppliers poured in from abroad, and the organization functioned extremely well during the War. By 31 March 1946, it was not only able to pay back to the government the assignments of funds made available to it but could also function on its own trading capital. However, with the end of the war and the homeward movement of the British troops, the import facilities dwindled, and the turnover of the organization shrank. With the pulling out of troops from the operational areas, the Indian Canteen Corps was disbanded, and the staff retrenched.

This was closely followed by the independence and partition of the country, and the wartime organization gave birth to two Canteen Stores Departments, i.e., CSD (India) and CSD (Pakistan). The Pakistani CSD would later bifurcate further to form CSD (Bangladesh), after the independence of Bangladesh. The retail trade, however, reverted to the contractors. A board of Liquidation was formed to oversee the liquidation of assets of the wartime organization, which ceased to function on 31 December 1947. The Canteen Stores Department, the present organization, thus took birth on 1 January 1948 with a working capital of ₹48 lakh (equivalent to ₹59 crore or US$6.1 million in 2026) assigned to it from assets of its predecessor wartime organization. The Government of India had granted the organization a life of three years on an experimental basis. The situation was reviewed in 1950, and the department was accepted as a government undertaking on a permanent basis.

Legal restrictions and irregularities

In states with liquor prohibition i.e., Bihar, Gujarat, Mizoram, Nagaland, and certain parts of Madhya Pradesh; army personnel are advised not to carry liquor while transiting through or while deployed into the state — even if they hold authorisation letters.

However, naval personnel operating at sea or in coastal waters of the state are not subject to such restrictions, as they fall under Admiralty law within Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) rather than local, state, or central liquor prohibition laws.

Cantonment areas, air force stations, and naval bases are considered to have different legal status, hence depending on the location, they are possibly completely exempt from local or federal laws.