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Polity & Governance
Mahesh

03/12/23 08:57 AM IST

Impact of liquor prohibition in Bihar

In News
  • The Chief Minister Nitish Kumar announced that there would be a fresh “house-to-house” survey to assess the impact of liquor prohibition in Bihar.
  • The survey is likely to begin from mid-December.
State Ban Liquor
  • To curb alcoholism, the Bihar government amended the Bihar Excise Act, 1915 and promulgated the Bihar Prohibition and Excise (Amendment) Act, 2016 from April 5, 2016, introducing total prohibition in the State.
  • On October 2, 2016 it promised to “enforce, implement and promote complete prohibition of liquor and intoxicants in the territory of the State of Bihar and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto”. However, since then, the Act has been amended several times.
  • Despite complete prohibition, illegal liquor bottles are known to have been funnelled into the State through States such as Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand and West Bengal and sometimes, even after crossing the porous border of the neighbouring country of Nepal.
  • Innovative ways are used including ambulances, hearses, gas cylinders, under vegetable sacks in pick-up vans and trucks and in pantry car coaches of trains.
  • In courts, there is a huge pile-up of prohibition-related cases across the State.
  • In December 2021, the then Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Justice N.V. Ramana, expressed concern over the (prohibition) law saying it was enforced with “lack of foresight” which has led to the “clogging of courts in the State”.
About Survey
  • The survey will cover a minimum of 2,500 households in all 38 districts and will be completed in 12 weeks.
  • The data of the survey will be collected on a day-to-day basis digitally. The department has already invited tenders from the institutions willing to conduct the survey.
  • There have been two surveys on the impact of the liquor ban in the State — in August 2018 and February 2023, initiated by the State government.
  • The first survey, conducted by Patna-based Asian Development Research Institute (ADRI) said there has been a positive impact after prohibition on people of the State as 1.64 crore have quit drinking, and spent the money saved to buy milk, vegetables and clothes.
  • The second survey was conducted by the Chanakya Law University in association with the Bihar Rural Livelihood Project (Jeevika) which had covered 33,000-odd villages in 534 blocks across all 38 districts of the State covering over 10 lakh people.
  • The survey had revealed that 1.82 crore have quit drinking but 4.39% admitted that they were still consuming liquor.
  • 99% women and 92% men of the State are in favour of the prohibition,” the survey showed.
  • Prohibition has also helped in the economic uplift of families, especially from poor classes among whom alcoholism has reduced drastically.
Reason for new survey
  • Despite the fact that the prohibition law has been amended thrice since April 2016, illegal trade in both Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) and country-made brew has been thriving.
  • The government has been conducting regular raids using drones, breath analysers, and setting up more check posts with personnel holding hand-held scanners at inter-State borders.
  • Over 5.5 lakh cases related to violation of provisions under the amended Act has been registered and over 7.5 lakh people have been arrested, but the conviction rate in such cases has been very low — 21.98% till February this year.
  • Over 1.6 crore litres of illegal IMFL and 97 lakh litres of country-made liquor have been seized in the State since April 2016.
  • As many as 74 special courts (excise) have been made functional and awareness programmes like street plays and posters are regularly put up but there has been no apparent let-up in the illegal supply of liquor.
  • Hundreds of policemen and excise officials have been suspended for violating prohibition laws.
Source- The Hindu

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