Kerala’s Congress-led UDF Government on Thursday decided to drastically dilute its own total-booze-ban-in-ten-years liquor policy, announced just four months back, by revoking or watering down its cardinal components despite stiff objections from within the Congress itself and coalition constituents like the Muslim league, allegedly to safeguard the liquor lobby’s interests.
A special meeting of the Cabinet on Thursday evening decided to revoke the policy decision making all Sundays ‘dry days’ (no-booze days). Bars, and retail liquor shops and other booze shops, which had remained closed on Sundays since October 2, will now function on all Sundays ensuring smooth supply of booze across the State on those days.
Another important decision of the Cabinet was to allot licences for running beer-and-wine parlours to all the 418 bars which were closed on March 31 last due to lack of required facilities. The licences of these bars were not to be renewed after March 31 as per the Govern-ment’s much publicised liquor policy announced on August 22.
The remaining 312 bars in the State are currently in operation as per an October 31 order of the High Court though the Government had ordered their closure by September 12. “In short, no liquor joint is being closed contrary to the Chief Minister’s proud announcement four months back,” said Fr TJ Antony of the anti-liquor panel of the Kerala Catholic Bishops’ Conference.
Repeating his claim that the fundamentals of the liquor policy were not being changed because of the “practical alterations”, Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, chief architect of the policy and its drastic dilution, told reporters in Thiruvananthapuram that the “relatively” hard decisions were taken considering the setbacks the tourism and labour sectors had been suffering.
The Chief Minister said that the 418 bars closed down on March 31 last would be allotted beer-and-wine parlour licences on the condition that the owners should ensure that the employees who were with them were re-employed. “Job loss of the employees, which had forced some of them to commit suicide, was one of our prime worries,” Chandy said.
The CPI(M)-led Opposition charged that the liquor policy itself was hypocritical and its dilution was meant to appease the liquor lobby while the Muslim league, second biggest constituent of the ruling front, registered its protest against the changes in the policy but admitted that it was being forced to remain silent because of coalition compulsions.
Chandy claimed that the decision to allow liquor sales on Sundays would not make much difference as the Cabinet had also decided to cut the working hours of all liquor joints by two hours a day. “Even otherwise, the Sunday-dry-day condition was not very effective as there was a 60 per cent rise in booze sales on Saturdays after Sundays were made booze-free,” he claimed.
He justified the Cabinet decision by stating that a committee the Government had constituted had reported that the Sunday-dry-day condition had seriously affected the tourism sector as business houses had stopped holding conferences in Kerala and that the policy had created serious problems in the employment sector.
“The other aspects of the liquor policy remain unchanged. licences will not be issued for bars at three-star and four-star hotels. These changes are being brought in to make the implementation of the policy perfect and effective,” Chandy said. “The fact is, Chandy is the weakest and most opportunistic Chief Minister Kerala has ever seen,” said the KCBC’s anti-liquor committee.