If the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) has its way, driving to Goa for a tipple, or even stopping along the way, one may require a bit more effort and knowledge of village roads.
A directive from the MoRTH has issued directions to the Goa State Government to shut bars along highways has already sent alarm bells ringing among the operators of existing facilities. “Since prevention is always better than cure, it is requested to issue instructions to remove liquor shops along National Highways and ensure that no licence is issued to liquor vendors along NHs,” Secretary of the MoRTH Vijay Chhibber has said in a communiqué to the State Government.
Goa, which draws several million tourists to its sunny coastline as well as cheap and easily available liquor, has nearly 7,000 bars and liquor shops. While many lie along the coast, a substantial chunk is located along the NHs that cross the State. While the more traditional village taverna, a small laidback bar serving local drink like feni unlikely to be affected the more recent phenomenon of highway bars servicing tourists, truck drivers and cleaners which have come up over the last three decades.Inebriated driving is not uncommon with inebriated drivers and riders mostly tourists committing self accidents every other day especially during the tourist season.
Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar too had admitted that drunken driving was a ‘huge problem’. Chhibber claims that strict implementation of the Section 185 of the motor vehicle act 1988 could help arrest the escalating death rate on India's highways. In 2011 alone, 1.42 lakh people were killed in road accidents, while nearly half a million received injuries, he says. In all 24,655 accidents, the Secretary says, happened due to drunken driving.
Anant Naik, who owns one of the 1560 bar licencees in North Goa’s District’s Bardez tehsil, tops the list of booze licences in the State and is along NH17 the Konkan Highway, says that no way is he going to let the government shut his business been running for decades now. “I have been running this bar for 25 years now. I have a clientele which has been established over the years. At 55, it will be difficult to relocate,” Naik says.
The State Excise Department, which issues licences, also feels that while not giving licences from now on would be easier, shutting existing ones is close to impossible. “liquor shops and bars in Goa have been around for decades. They are an established lobby and getting them to relocate may not be easy. Unless we get explicit instructions we may not crackdown hard,” a senior official said.
Incidentally, the BJP-led coalition Government has already stopped issuing fresh liquor licences in Goa earlier this year in a bid to take stock of the existing licencees. Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar has said that the status quo would continue until the Government comes up with proper guidelines for issuing licences.