Despite the new liquor policy of the Congress-led UDF Government, that envisages a total liquor ban in the State over the next ten years, tipplers in Kerala reasserted their loyalty to wine god Bacchus during the just-concluded Onam festival by consuming 29 per cent more alcohol than they had gulped down during the festival last year.
According to sources in the Kerala State Beverages Corporation (Bevco), the State-run monopoly liquor distributor, Keralites guzzled Indian Made Foreign liquor (IMFl) worth Rs92.45-crore on the two main Onam days of Uthradam and Thiruvonam on September 6 and 7 respectively, registering an increase of 29 per cent over last season’s figures.
These figures correspond to liquor sales recorded at the 338 retail outlets of Bevco and 46 shops of the Kerala State Cooperative Consumers’ Federation (ConsumerFed), another State-run firm. Of the total 730 non 5-Star bars in the State, 418 were closed on April 1.
The 29 per cent increase in the Bevco-ConsumerFed liquor sales proves that the closure of the 418 bars had not discouraged Kerala’s spirit lovers from drinking. “It only shows that the tipplers who used to depend on these bars had bought booze from retail outlets and made their homes their personal bars,” said a top official of the Kerala Excise Department.
liquor sale through Bevco outlets this Onam season was worth Rs78-crore while that through the ConsumerFed shops was worth Rs14.45-crore. Apart from this, the booze sale through retail outlets from April to August this year could cross the Rs4,000-crore mark while it was Rs3,759-crore during the same period in 2013, Bevco sources said.
“These data disprove the claims of the pro-prohibition lobbies that closure of bars can bring down alcohol consumption,” said a bar owner in Kochi.
“The Government is on a hypocrisy trip. It is closing down the bars but keeping its own vending centres open. We are losing our investments while the Government is making money. What is the logic in thisIJ” he asked.
Sources said that the Bevco management had got strict instructions from Excise Minister K Babu, who was eager to prove that alcohol consumption had come down after the closure of the 418 bars, and the State Excise Commissioner not to divulge the details of sales records of the corporation for the current financial year.
The new liquor policy says that the only bars to function in the State after October 2 will be those at 5-Star hotels. All the retail IMFl outlets functioning in the State will be closed down in the next ten years at a rate of ten per cent per year, leading to “total” liquor ban. As part of the move, all Sundays after October 2 will be no-liquor days or dry days.