On this day, April 5, 2016, total prohibition had been enforced on booze in Bihar with the provisions of stringent laws. But even after one year a question is being asked every now and then, or one can say almost every day: Is Bihar really dryIJ legally it is, practically it is not.
In the last one year, during the anti-booze drive by the sleuths of excise department and police arrested 44,594 violators of the Bihar Prohibition & Excise Act, registered over 40,000 cases and there are over 2.16 lakh cases of raids. The two agencies seized 514,539 litres of foreign liquor worth Rs41 crore, 310,292 litres of country-made liquor worth Rs9 crore and 11,371 litres of beer, till March 31.
Vehicles carrying liquor are caught and seized almost every day but very few people know how much booze reaches its destination unnoticed. Majority of the supply is coming from neighbouring Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Jharkhand and also from Nepal. Bihar Association for Indian made Foreign liquor Retailers president Nawal Singh said, “The clandestine sale of liquor is unabated. Demand is there that is why supply is coming. Earlier it was sold from licensed shops and now through illegal means.” But he added that one year is not a big time to judge the success or failure of the prohibition.
Asked about the unabated raids, seizure and arrest by police and excise officials, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who conceived the idea of total prohibition, said, “Drinking is a social ill and can’t be eliminated overnight. We have brought strict legislation but that doesn’t mean that alcoholism would end. There is death penalty for murder but murders are taking place. The need is to change the mindset of the people and I am happy to notice it is changing.”
Nitish at the outset had asserted that he was least bothered about the revenue loss Bihar would suffer due to prohibition. Bihar during the previous fiscal had earned Rs5,000 crore. But the finance department documents claimed no drop in the State revenue in the fiscal 2016-17 owing to prohibition, a claim contested by the opposition. It pointed out that the commercial taxes department has fallen short of its target by Rs3,500 crore and registration department by Rs700 crore in the just closed financial year.
BJP leader and former Bihar Finance Minister Sushil Kumar Modi said despite imposing heavy tax on certain items revenue collection target fell short. “The CM claimed that people spent money on different things like purchasing more sweets, clothes, milk, sewing machines and other domestic items out of the Rs 10,000 crore saved by them by not consuming liquor then why the revenue target could not be met.
Nitish, however, takes pride that the prohibition he imposed in Bihar has caught the fancy of the people across the country particularly the women and now they have launched agitation in their villages and blocks in different States like Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Maharashtra. Nitish is being invited by various organisations to come and boost up their morale.
The Bihar CM has linked prohibition with the centenary of the Gandhi’s Champaran Satyagraha and asked Prime Minister Naarendra Modi to ask the BJP ruled States to impose prohibition in order to fulfil the dreams of the Mahatma. The PM last January had publicly praised Nitish for the “courageous” decision.