Noting that the hooch tragedies taking place in Bihar is a crime and it has nothing to do with ‘prohibition’, chief minister Nitish Kumar on Monday assured that the matter will be dealt with accordingly.
Strongly defending prohibition by the state government, Nitish said the deaths due to hooch tragedies, which take place even in states with no prohibition, should not be attributed to the Bihar government policy.
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“The hooch tragedies taking place in the states without prohibition is a bigger crime. We have been largely successful in prohibition. Family bliss has returned due to it and people are happier spending the amount saved on liquor on better food and lifestyle,” the chief minister said addressing the media persons in his assembly chamber.
However, he said, nobody can claim ‘prohibition’ can be 100%, as there are always some unscrupulous elements in making money at the cost of human lives and resort to criminal acts.
“Such incidents do come as a dampener, but they cannot change the collective resolve for social reforms in society. All efforts would be made to nab the suppliers and smugglers, who try to make a fast buck at the cost of human misery,” he added.
The chief minister once again slammed the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for opposing the prohibition policy. He said the opposition who is protesting today was also with prohibition. “Even Prime Minister Narendra Modi appreciated it when he came to Patna,” he added.
BJP, the leading opposition party, has been targeting the Bihar government over the deaths and its prohibition policy. The party has termed the hooch tragedies as a result of the complete failure of prohibition in the state.
Speaking about how prohibition played a huge role in Bihar’s economy and helped families grow their expenditure and improve their livelihood, the chief minister said, “after a loss of ₹1,200 crore in the first year of prohibition, it has been more than compensated in the succeeding years due to growing expenditure on household items, education and food, which earlier went to liquor. Besides, the return of family bliss is priceless.”
He said the estimated revenue loss was put at around ₹5,000 crore, which might have reached ₹20,000 crore by now, but nobody is seeing how the revenue on other fronts has increased.
According to a study carried out by the Chanakya National Law University (Panchayati Raj Chair) and Anugrah Narayan Sinha Institute of Social Studies, Patna, which was approved by the department of prohibition, excise and registration, govt. of Bihar in 2021 has found that over 80% of people are in favour of prohibition and want it to be continued, while 13.8% are against it.
The said study was also approved by the previous National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government.
The state was also aggrieved at the misleading death toll being flashed. While the opposition claimed that the death toll in Bihar has crossed 100, prohibition, excise and registration minister Sunil Kumar, along with additional chief secretary KK Pathak told media persons on Monday that the official death toll was still at 38 and the figures being claimed by the opposition were “misleading.”
When asked by the media about the claims of families that they cremated the bodies under pressure without a post-mortem, Sunil said any specific case coming to light would be verified and if found true, the toll would be updated.
“There is nothing to hide in this digital era when social media is everywhere. We are awaiting the post-mortem reports. The reports from the senior officials of the prohibition & excise as well as the police would also be prepared for action against the perpetrators. It is a challenge, but it does not mean that prohibition is flawed,” he added.
Sunil said, so far 25 arrests have been made and two FIRs lodged against 13 named and several unnamed accused in connection with the illicit liquor trade in the state.
“The special investigation team (SIT) is on the job to catch the suppliers of deadly liquor no matter where they are. We have made over 7,000 arrests of those involved with liquor trade/smuggling in Bihar from other states,” he added.
