Thumbs down for re opening of toddy shops from Dasara
Toddy shops will be back from Dasara after 10 years; residents’ complaints pour in
By : DC Correspondent
Update: 2014-09-29 01:44 GMT
Hyderabad: The issue of reopening of toddy shops in the city from Dasara after a gap of nearly 10 years has sparked off a row. As it had promised before elections, the TRS government has decided to permit toddy shops under GHMC limits from Dasara. However, the decision has not gone down well with many, who are demanding the government to relocate these toddy shops from residential areas.
People are submitting petitions to Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao, and excise minister T. Padma Rao to not allow toddy shops in their previous locations, in residential areas and colonies. They said that the situation in the city is now different than two decades ago as many residential areas have come up where the toddy shops had existed earlier.
They want the government to implement the same norms that are being adopted for bars and wine shops, maintaining a stipulated distance from residential areas, schools, temples and hospitals.
The government has received hundreds of complaints from representatives of residential areas and colonies against allowing toddy shops in places where they had earlier existed when they were banned by then CM, YSR, in 2005.
A large number of complaints have come from Lalapet, Amberpet, Chikkadpally, Golnaka, Sithaphalmandi and Khairatabad. Most of the complainants were women and girls, who expressed fear that they would face severe problems due to drunken people at the toddy shops in their surroundings.
They brought to the notice of the government that they had been living peacefully for the last 10 years due to the ban on toddy shops and are now worried about their reopening now. Women from poorer sections meanwhile are concerned that their families will be adversely affected if their husbands get addicted to toddy again.
They have urged the government to allow toddy shops away from residential areas.
The Forum for Good Governance has also urged the government to reverse its decision. It pointed out that there are scarcely any toddy or phoenix trees in the city and to compensate for the shortage, the traders are resorting to adulteration by mixing chemicals like alprazolam in the toddy. Besides, the open sale of toddy would make the city an unsafe place for women. If they are reopened, it would facilitate rampant adulteration.
As per the guidelines issued in 2004, toddy shops could only be established within a distance of 50 km from the place where there were toddy or phoenix trees. Since there were no such trees within GHMC limits, the toddy shops were closed in the year 2005.