A survey by the Bihar government has hailed the liquor prohibition in the state, with 95.61% of the respondents claiming they left drinking since April 1, 2016, the day the Nitish Kumar government imposed the liquor ban.
HT has seen the findings of the survey, which was conducted by PanchayatI Raj chair of Chanakya National Law University (CNLU) through Bihar Rural Livelihood Mission (Jeevika) across 33,805 villages in 534 blocks in all the 38 districts in the state, covering a total of 1,022,467 people.
The government had asked for the survey in December last year to gauge the public mood amid continuous attacks on CM Kumar for sticking to prohibition despite several hooch tragedies and loss of lives in the state. The Supreme Court too had made some stinging remarks on how prohibition related cases had clogged the judicial system.
In the study, just 4.39% people admitted they were still consuming liquor despite prohibition.
This is significant as 45.56% of respondents in rural areas and 49.04% people in urban areas admitted they consumed liquor before prohibition was imposed. “The survey shows 1.82 crore people could be completely off liquor now,” said CNLU chair professor S P Singh, who submitted the report to K K Pathak, additional chief secretary, department of prohibition and excise.
The report says 92.12% people are in favour of prohibition.
However, the survey found even higher percentage in favour of prohibition when it came to women. Almost all women surveyed (99.36%) backed prohibition, saying it had brought them peace and family bliss.
While imposing the ban, CM Kumar had often cited concerns expressed to him by women about problems they faced because of alcoholism among men.
An earlier study — Temperance Movement : The Impact of Liquor Prohibition on Socio-Economy and Livelihood in Bihar — conducted last year, had also shown that almost all women, cutting across caste and class, were in support of the liquor ban and did not want it to be revoked.
A pilot study carried out in 2017, barely a year after prohibition, by a team of three doctors had found that around 64% of habitual drinkers had stopped taking alcohol after the ban while over 25% shifted to other substances like toddy, ganja (Marijuana), charas etc, while many were still getting alcohol illegally from nearby locality or neighbouring districts. It had said about 30% of known alcoholics continued alcohol consumption.
