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Hyderabad
The recent suspicious deaths in Jangareddygudem in Andhra Pradesh’s West Godavari district allegedly due to consumption of spurious liquor has once again triggered the debate over the impracticability of the implementation of total prohibition in the state.
The opposition Telugu Desam Party has claimed that as many as 26 people had died in a span of two weeks in Jangareddygudem town due to consumption of hooch since March 1. The TDP members continuously stalled the assembly proceedings during the recent budget session that commenced on March 8 and got suspended from the House almost every day.
The chief minister, however, refuted the allegations of the TDP and claimed on the floor of the assembly on March 14 that most of the deaths in Jangareddygudem were natural and there was no scope for manufacturing of spurious liquor in the town at all.
He said a special enforcement bureau (SEB) created in the police department in 2020 was cracking down on any such illicit liquor manufacturing, and trade, besides smuggling of narcotics.
But soon after the mysterious deaths came to light in the media and rocked the assembly, the SEB authorities conducted a series of raids on the makers of illicit liquor in Jangareddygudem, apart from other parts of the state.
An official statement from the SEB said a total of 1,129 cases were registered and 677 accused were arrested between March 10 and 13. During the raids, 576,710 litres of fermented jaggery wash were destroyed and 13.471 litres of illicit-distilled liquor along with 68.618 kilograms of black jaggery were seized.
“The official statement itself is an indication that the illicit distillation of liquor is thriving in the state and that the claim of the Jagan government that it will implement total prohibition in the state in a phased manner is a hoax,” says senior TDP leader and former excise minister K S Jawahar.
Implementation of total prohibition by 2024 had been one of the promises made by Jagan Mohan Reddy before the 2019 elections. Soon after coming to power in May 2019, he began the exercise in that direction.
As per the new excise policy he had brought in from October 2019, the prohibition was to be implemented in three phases: In the first phase, all the unauthorised liquor shops (belt shops, as they are called in local parlance) would be removed and liquor shops near national and state highways would be closed down.
In the second phase, the state government would take over the liquor trade and reduce the number of wine shops and bars and finally, by the end of the third phase, liquor would be made available only in 5-star hotels. These phases will also be supported by de-addiction and awareness programmes, the government had announced.
As announced, the state government took over the liquor shops from private dealers and entrusted sale of liquor to Andhra Pradesh Beverages Corporation Ltd. The government also reduced the number of retail outlets by 33 per cent – from 4,380 to 2,934 and bars by 40 per cent – from 840 to 530, to reduce access to the availability of liquor. The business hours of wine shops were also reduced by two hours – from 11 pm to 9 pm.
In a bid to discourage liquor consumption, the Jagan government also increased the liquor prices substantially in October 2019 and further by another 75 per cent amid the Covid-19 pandemic to further discourage consumption of liquor in the state.
According to special chief secretary (excise) Rajat Bhargava, the sale of Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) has come down by 37 per cent and that of beer by 77 per cent in the last two and a half years.
“We have removed 43,000 unauthorised liquor shops in the rural areas. We have increased the prices of liquor substantially, but recently, we had to reduce the prices of some brands of liquor in order to prevent smuggling from the neighbouring states across the border,” he said.
What is surprising is that in spite of the claims by the officials, the revenue from the liquor has not come down; instead, it has been consistently on the rise after the announcement of the Jagan government on prohibition.
According to the budgetary figures, the revenue from state excise was ₹5,789 crore during 2017-18 and it went up to ₹ 6,220 crore in 2018-19. After the Jagan government was formed in June 2019 and came up with the new excise policy with phase-wise prohibition, the revenue from excise increased to ₹6,914 crore in 2019-20.
Despite the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020-21 and reduction in number of wine shops and bars, the excise revenue went up substantially to ₹11,575 crore. As per the revised estimates of 2021-22, the revenue from liquor was ₹14,500 crore. In the annual budget for 2022-23 passed by the state assembly on Friday, the state has estimated the revenue from liquor at ₹16,500 crore.
“The increase in revenue is due to increase in liquor prices and tightening of smuggling from across the borders,” Bhargava said.
An official in the state government said on condition of anonymity that the consumption of liquor has not come down as claimed by the officials, but has gone up substantially. “If the state has to get ₹16,500 crore revenue from liquor, there should be consumption of liquor worth at least ₹30,000 crore. How can we expect that the liquor consumption has to go down and yet, get ₹2,000 crore more revenue compared to the last year?” he asked.
“Implementation of prohibition is impractical and has never been a success in several states across the country. It is a flawed policy and in a cash-starved state like Andhra Pradesh, the state government cannot just forego revenue from liquor,” says senior journalist and analyst Suresh Dharur.
He said socially, too, it is practically not implementable as the government cannot change the habits of the people by force. “Moreover, it leads to dangerous repercussions like smuggling and brewing of illicit liquor,” Dharur said.
In fact, an experiment was made to implement dry law in the combined Andhra Pradesh in ‘90s. A massive anti-arrack agitation was launched by a group of women in Dubbaka village in Nellore in 1990 and it spread across the state in the form of a social movement soon, backed by the vernacular media.
In the run-up to the 1994 elections, prohibition had become a major electoral issue for the political parties. Then TDP president N T Rama Rao made a promise to implement total prohibition if his party was voted to power.
Soon after coming to power with a massive mandate in December 1994, he signed the first file, banning sale and consumption of liquor in the state. He ordered closure of four breweries and 24 distilleries producing liquor.
Chandrababu Naidu, who dethroned NTR to come to power in September 1995, started diluting the policy, after realising that the state was incurring heavy loss of revenue due to prohibition. He introduced “permit rooms” concept, where liquor was sold in special outlets run by the state breweries corporation on production of a “doctor’s certificate” to buy alcohol.
And by April 1997, the Naidu government had done away with total prohibition on the ground that the policy resulted in rampant smuggling and free flow of illicit liquor, besides massive loss to the state exchequer. However, the ban on arrack was continued and it still continues.
The present Jagan Mohan Reddy government, too, started implementing the initial phase of prohibition, but has soon realised that it has resulted in smuggling of liquor from across the borders and illicit brewing of liquor within the state.
When the state government increased the prices of liquor by 75 per cent in 2020, it resulted in smuggling of liquor from Telangana and Karnataka, where the prices were comparatively low. Though the SEB was constituted to curb the flow of non-duty paid liquor into the State and also enforced several measures to curb bootlegging, the flow of illegal liquor into the State continued.
SEB commissioner Vineet Brijlal said as many as 93,722 cases had been filed and over 69,178 people were arrested in the last two years for indulging in smuggling and bootlegging. “We have identified more than 2,000 places involved in making of illicit liquor and destroyed them. Cases were filed against as many as 14 people under Preventive Detention Act for indulging in bootlegging,” he said.
State excise minister K Narayana Swamy told the assembly that the SEB authorities had seized 12,40,635 litres of spurious liquor in the last two years. We are allowing liquor manufacturing as per the stipulated rules, he said.
Interestingly, the number of liquor shops and bars, which were reduced initially, remained constant in the last two years, though as per the prohibition policy, they have to be gradually phased out.
Added to this, the government also introduced nearly 100 walk-in liquor stores to sell premium brands of liquor for catering to needs of high-end customers and tourists in the state in the last two years. “It clearly shows that the government cannot forego the revenue on liquor, which is very crucial for the exchequer. After all, you cannot change the habits of the people,” Dharur added.
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