Bihar is now a dry state, joining three other Indian states “ Gujarat, Mizoram and Nagaland in enforcing a total ban. The reason, according to Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar is to curb incidents of domestic violence and broken homes. He also stressed on the rising economic and health costs involved in dealing with alcoholics, which will now go down.
Perhaps Nitish Kumar hasn’t yet read the 2014 report by the World Health Organisation, which showed that around 50 percent of all alcohol consumed in India is unrecorded, doesn’t get taxed and is more than likely part of a counterfeit activity. Perhaps he has. But the reality is this, prohibition doesn’t really work.
There is no doubt that intoxicants and the rising cases of domestic violence are linked. There are also health benefits to curbing the intake of alcohol. But there are also better ways to deal with this than just lay down a blanket ban on the legal sale of alcohol. There is not controlling the black market. Take Gujarat for instance. Prohibition in the state has been in existence since May 1960, when the state was formed. Yet, you can order alcohol over the phone. No amount of government force has managed to curb the sale of alcohol there for decades.
The Bihar government is losing around Rs 5000 crore in revenue from this ban, and perhaps they can deal with it. But they have yet to deal with the implications of spurious liquor. That may not be as easy as they imagined it to be.
