The Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) has decided not to provide liquor to its personnel. The world’s largest paramilitary force has stopped procurement and provision of liquor by its establishments, institutions and field units. The reason: A sudden discovery that liquor consumption was adversely affecting the health of its personnel.
The CRPF sources claim that this has been done due to rising number of non-operational deaths caused by alcohol-related ailments, suicides and fratricides. The paramilitary force is now promoting yoga for its overall health benefits —
physical, mental and spiritual — following a directive from the Centre.
“As desired by the authorities, purchase of liquor at unit/group centre is hereby stopped with immediate effect as its use by the personnel is adversely affecting their health. Henceforth, no institution will purchase liquor as a routine measure,” said the order issued by the CRPF Directorate on June 29.
The Directorate has also asked all its formations to stop even such purchase procedures that were initiated before this decision but have not yet materialised.
Any unit requiring purchase of liquor due to any reasons will now have to obtain prior approval of the CRPF Director General on each occasion on a case to case basis.
The CRPF headquarters has also sought strict adherence to the order in letter and spirit from all its establishments.
When contacted CRPF DG Prakash Mishra told The Pioneer, “liquor was not an essential item in the priority list and so the procurement is being discontinued.”
In internal meetings at the paramilitary directorate, Mishra had expressed his anguish over the procurement of liquor in excess of the authorised limits. After detailed discussions by the top CRPF brass, the paramilitary decided to scrap the procurement of liquor as its consumption is not only harmful to the body but was also causing many diseases within its ranks.
According to the sources, apart from excess procurement supplies from dubious contractors were further aggravating the problem.
Earlier, the Government had issued a detailed directive to all the paramilitary forces, including the CRPF to include yoga as part of daily physical exercise in various field establishments like battalions, group centres and border outposts among others. Accordingly, the CRPF has instructed all its field formations to include yoga as part of daily physical exercise.
The scale of the problem due to alcoholism can be gauged from the fact that as many as 20 paramilitary personnel have committed suicide and nearly half a dozen have lost their lives due to fragging this year.
In the first two months alone of this year, only two persons were killed in operation out of the total casualties of 60. During the period, 17 people died due to heart attack, three due to cancer, two owing to liver disease, one following kidney failure and 12 due to suicides. Five people died due to unknown reasons and another eight suffered casualties due to road accident. Most of these included the youth.
In 2014, only 52 out of 327 deaths occurred due to operational reasons. Sixty-five died due to heart attacks, 18 due to cancer, 15 due to liver disease and seven due to kidney-related problems or withdrawal symptoms. Another 39 committed suicide and 38 lost their lives due to road accident.
In 2013, only 30 personnel died due to operational reasons and five owing to natural reasons out of a total figure of 374 deaths. A significant 81 deaths were reported due to heart attacks, 37 suicides, 16 following liver failure, seven due to kidney failure, eight multi-organ failure and 30 owing to cancer. Most of these diseases are directly or indirectly connected to alcoholism.
A 2001 Standing Order (S/0 80/2001) issued a detailed prescription of consumption according to altitudes of the areas where the personnel were deployed and sought to curb alcoholism within the ranks but during the last few years the quota of liquor was increased manifold to make the personnel peg-happy.
Following increased quota and subsequent problems arising out of liquor consumption, an internal study was conducted and again the directorate sought to adhere to the 2001 Standing Order. The 2001 circular prescribes a limit of 90 ml per person per day but this was also often violated due to excess procurement and disbursal.