 In 1981, Mallya controlled 10 breweries and 14 distilleries, seven processed food companies, six investment companies, two small packaging units, three drug firms, soft drinks bottling plants, a battery unit and one of the company's two styrene companies, while heading a handful of other companies even though he did not have controlling interest.Business rivals charged him with reveling in the unethical practices of the liquor industry, and maximizing profits by making whisky from molasses instead of malted barley—the former process allegedly costing only 5 per cent of the latter, but with the resultant spirit being far more harmful to health.Mallya's name was also linked in 1980 to the then Maharashtra chief minister A.R.