Surge in toxic liquor tragedies in 2021 points to the failure of prohibition policy in Bihar
At least the deaths in the last few days 25 people in Gopalganj and West Champaran districts of Bihar And in Muzaffarpur, apart from five, many others are falling ill after consuming spurious liquor, an unintended but not unexpected consequence of the total prohibition law in force in the state for more than five years. Such hooch tragedies result Unregulated production and sale of alcohol through the black market, and illicit alcohol consumption As an alternative due to the lack of over-the-counter and regulated beverage sales. Prohibition as a policy has been shown state after state as inadequate to curb the problem of alcoholism and the havoc it wreaks on households due to excessive consumption for various reasons. In Bihar, implementation has not been without immense public support, especially among rural women. Yet, despite significant steps taken by the excise department, police and local administration officials to step up enforcement – over 3.46 lakh people were arrested and 150 lakh liters of country-made and Indian-made foreign liquor seized in the last five years. Went. April 2016 to February 2021 – Weaknesses remain in imposing sanctions. It is well known that one of the negative externalities of prohibition is the creation of a parallel bootlegger economy that could lead to an increase in violent crime, and this appears to have originated in Bihar as well.
The chief minister, Nitish Kumar, has been the most ardent supporter of prohibition in the state and the policy has reaped electoral dividends for his party, the Janata Dal (United) and its ally Bharatiya Janata Party, as it has been overwhelmingly welcomed by rural women. Liquor ban. While the ban on alcohol consumption initially helped rural households increase spending on basic items related to food and education, there have been reports from rural Bihar about how these benefits have been diminished by the rise in counterfeit consumption. Reportedly, illicit liquor killed at least 60 people in the state in 2021, which is much higher than the six deaths reported in the National Crime Records Bureau report on accidental deaths and suicides in India in 2020. The increase in alcohol incidents and deaths should be scaled. Alarm bells are ringing about the administration’s failure to check black marketing in the sale and consumption of liquor. Mr Kumar insists that the success of prohibition is only a matter of implementation of the law and in a way attributed the deaths to the ignorance of those consuming spurious liquor. But the fact that these deaths continue should alert the government to misunderstandings with the idea of complete prohibition as a magic bullet in a state marked by weaknesses in institutions and low overall human development.
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