E-Paper
Why govt lifted the 6-year-old liquor ban in Maharashtra’s Chandrapur district
The six-year-old liquor ban at Chandrapur district in Vidarbha region was lifted by the Maharashtra government last week
The six-year-old liquor ban at Chandrapur district in Vidarbha region was lifted by the Maharashtra government last week. While experts and activists said poor implementation failed the attempts to ban liquor, the state government has reasoned multiple issues, including rise in crime rate, illegal sale and smuggling of alcohol from other districts, fall in growth rate \as well as revenue losses accounting to ₹2,571 crore in five years, behind revoking it.
The cabinet in its meeting on May 27 referred to the 100-page report submitted by a 13-member committee headed by former excise commissioner Ramanath Jha and comprised legal experts, activists, educationists and officials from various government departments.
The committee said that the implementation of the ban has grossly failed, resulting in the rampant sale of illicit and spurious liquor, which is injurious to the health. Secondly, while the state government lost on its excise revenue, the high sale of illegal and smuggled liquor led to the rise in crime rate. The liquor ban also had an impact on the social, health and criminal aspects, with the involvement of children and women in the illegal sale of liquor being the most worrisome, the report stated. Lastly, the public opinion over the ban appears to have changed because of the failed implementation and it has resulted in citizen groups demanding that the prohibition be revoked.
However, the committee has recommended that the ban can continue if the implementation is taken seriously. It has also stated that if the measures suggested by the Deotale committee – appointed in 2011 before the ban came into force – were enforced rigorously, liquor can be prohibited in the district by allocating more funds and resources. The Jha committee also recommended taking a decision on continuing the ban, based on its assessment in rural and urban parts of the district. Finally, it also recommend for a state-level liquor ban policy, instead of imposing it in some districts
Data that went against the ban
The committee collated the five-year before and after data from various departments to assess the impact of the liquor ban. In its report, the committee stated that the annual growth in stamp duty contracted between 2015 and 2019 to 8.15% from 26.14% recorded in 2010-2014. Similarly, the annual value-added tax (VAT)/ goods and services tax (GST) growth rate contracted to 1.87%, during the five years of ban against 16.32% recorded before it. The committee also observed that tourism, entertainment and hospitality sectors were badly hit.
According to the committee, the cases of crimes against women shot up to 4,042 during the 2015-19 period from 1,729 cases recorded in 2010-2014, while the cases against children increased to 64 from 24 in the five-year period before the ban.
The number of cases related to liquor consumption went up to 36,215 in the first five years of the ban against 12,474 cases from 2010 to 2014. Other crime cases, too, witnessed around two-fold rise from 25,101 to 47,050 in 2015-2019.
“Children and women were roped into to smuggle liquor from the neighbouring Nagpur, Bhandara and Yavatmal districts to evade the police. Many students who travel to their colleges to Nagpur were caught smuggling liquor bottles in their bags. The number of illegal shops selling smuggled illegal and spurious liquor mushroomed in thousands, against the 531 licensees that existed before ban. More serious was the rise in organised crime, as gangs of goons entered in the business of illegal sale. The fact that 26 people were booked under the Maharashtra Prevention of Dangerous Activities (MPDA) Act in the first five years of ban shows the severity of the crime situation of the district. There was not a single case registered under MPDA from 2010 to 2014,” said an excise department official.
The report submitted by the committee has also stated that the government exchequer faced a revenue loss of ₹2,571 crore ( ₹1,607 crore in excise and VAT worth ₹964) in the first five years of ban.
It stated that out of the 269,824 memoranda received from the citizens during a referendum, 243,627 proposed that the ban be lifted, while only 25,876 favoured its continuation. Home, excise and finance departments of the state government seconded the proposal to lift the ban, while rural development, social justice and woman and child welfare departments expressed their reservations in lifting it.
Politics behind the decision
The Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government was in favour of lifting the liquor ban from Day one of its formation in November 2019.
A committee under the district collector was appointed immediately after MVA government came in power. It submitted its report last March, favouring the withdrawal of the ban. When the government tried to lifting the ban on the basis of the report, the district witnessed a huge uproar, with locals saying the report was biased and the data fudged.
Social activists such as Paromita Goswami and Dr Abhay Bang staunchly opposed the lifting of the ban. Treading cautious steps, the state government appointed the committee headed by Jha in September.
The lifting of ban came as a decision as part of the election promise by Congress leaders, similar on the lines of the decision to impose it in 2015 by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government.
BJP leader and former Chandrapur guardian minister Sudhir Mungantiwar had assured the locals that liquor will be banned if the party is elected to power in the 2014 Assembly polls. The ban was one of the decisions taken by the Devendra Fadnavis government in the first six months.
In the 2019 Assembly polls, Chandrapur’s guardian minister and state relief and rehabilitation minister from the Congress, Vijay Wadettiwar, had made the issue the election plank by assuring the electorate that the ban will be lifted.
“The lifting of ban was based on the referendum in which public opinion was weighed. The sale of illegal and spurious liquor had increased multi-fold and crime rates shot up. More than 4,000 women and 320 children were booked for direct involvement in illicit liquor business. The ban led to other ill-effects as well, owing to which it has been lifted,” the minister said.
Mungantiwar said alleged that the data and statistics given by the district machinery are fudged and fake.
“The decision to lift the ban was taken for political and other reasons. Many Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leaders are directly involved in the liquor business at Chandrapur and the adjoining districts. The government is eyeing an annual sale of ₹1,000 crore for liquor, but it will come at the cost of people’s health and well-being. Their claim of revenue losses is not true because the excise duty is levied on manufacturing,” he said.
Mungantiwar said that MVA’s priority is to push the liquor businesses and the decision to provide waivers to the industry in the past 18 months prove it.
“The decision to lift the ban during the pandemic shows how desperate they were for it,” he added.
Dissenting voices
Dr Bang, who has been fighting for liquor ban in Chandrapur and Gadchiroli said that the figures given to revoke the decision were exaggerated and twisted.
“The public opinion taken in the name of the referendum was a sham and the memoranda collected in favour of lifting the ban were generated by those who were in the liquor business. The figures given for the rise in crime rate are inflated because the number of domestic violence cases and the general crimes have reduced. The data includes cases registered for illegal sale of liquor. A survey done by non-governmental organisation (NGO) Search and Nagpur University establishes that the ban had a positive impact. The district collector, who should have been the nodal officer to implement the ban, was asked to review and submit a report after the political leadership announced to lift it. This is just a mockery of the law,” he said.
Dr Bang said that Chandrapur’s ban failed because its implementation fell short.
“No ban proves to be 100% effective. The ban in adjoining Gadchiroli is 70% successful as 600 of the total villages have implemented it in toto. We have taskforces in villages for its implementation. As CM, Fadnavis had headed the taskforce for the district. If it could be successful in Gadchiroli, why can’t it be replicated in Chandrapur? And if the ban is lifted for failure in implementation, ban on tobacco, corruption and plastic, too, should be lifted,” he added.
Goswami, who has been fighting for the ban since 2002, said that the government lacked the will power to strictly implement it.
“Why it can’t be successful in Chandrapur when its being strictly in force in Gadchiroli. The government had passed an ordinance in September 2019 for the stricter implementation of prohibition in these districts, but MVA government did not convert it into a law,” she said.
Demand for ban started in 2000s
• Wardha, known for the popular Sevagram Ashram where Mahatma Gandhi lived during the freedom movement, was the first district to impose liquor ban in 1975
• The Maoist-dominated tribal district of Gadchiroli imposed the ban in 1993
• The demand for liquor ban started gaining momentum in Chandrapur from the early 2000s. In 2010, the issue was raised in the legislature, and the government assured to appoint a committee to deliberate on the issue
• During 2010-11, 585 (60%) gram panchayats in the district passed a resolution calling for the liquor ban. More than 100,000 women signed a petition over the demand, but no decision was taken by the then Congress-led government
• in February 2011, a committee was constituted under the then guardian minister and Congress leader Sanjay Deotale
• A month later, thousands of women from Chandrapur’s Chimur marched to Nagpur demanding the ban
• The Deotale committee submitted the report in February 2012 recommending the ban and suggested measures for its implementation.
