Following the implementation of the new excise policy of Bihar, over six thousand liquor shops and outlets will be shut down. They are mainly countrymade liquor shops located in rural areas.
Now 656 liquor shops will be opened in urban areas of Bihar where only Indian made foreign liquor will be available and the outlets would be run by Bihar State Beverage Corporation limited (BSBCl).
After Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on November 26 declared to implement prohibition, from April 1, 2016, which he had promised before Assembly election, he also directed the officials to draft a new excise policy. The draft of the new policy is almost ready and expected to be presented before the CM on December 24.
The new policy has proposed complete ban on production, sale and purchase of countrymade liquor, all its contracts and licenses will be cancelled, all the shops dealing with countrymade, foreign and composite liquor in panchayat and villages will be closed. The policy has also proposed that Indian made foreign liquors will be sold only in municipal localities in urban areas but for its sale shops will not be allotted through contracts or license and it will be managed by the BSBCl. In big cities like Patna, Gaya and Muzaffarpur 10 shops in each city will be permissible while ion small towns like Bhagalpur and Darbhanga only four shops will be opened.
The BSBCl has invited tenders for opening Indian made foreign liquor shops in municipal areas. It has been directed that all the shops will have CCTV cameras, outsourced security guards, furniture and currency note counting and fake currency detection machines.
Nitish opponents are mounting attack on the CM for climbing down on his promise of `total’ prohibition, even though the CM at no point of time claimed total prohibition rather he always made promise of prohibition giving stress on saving the poor people from the ill of liquor consumption. During the past few years thousands of shops through contracts had been opened in villages which sold countrymade liquor to rural population.
BJP leader and former Deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi said the Bihar government was stammering over the liquor policy. “Sometimes it talks about banning only countrymade liquor and sometimes total prohibition is advocated. The CM promised total prohibition but lalu Prasad is holding talks with the liquor traders. Amid this contradiction between the two power centres, the Bihar State Beverage Corporation is trying to take retail sale of foreign liquor in its control,” said Modi.
The confusion over the liquor ban was created following a statement of excise and prohibition minister Abdul Jalil Mastan who after the CM’s declared stand announced that all liquors, countrymade as well as foreign liquor, would be banned in Bihar. Now Mastan, a minister from Congress quota, said the ban would be implemented in phases. In the first phase countrymade and locally brewed liquor will be banned. But, he added, private persons would not be given license for opening foreign liquor shops and everything would be under the control of the Government.