Poll promise: Bihar to be a dry state from next year
Fulfilling his promise made to women, Nitish announces ban on liquor sale
Patna: New laws are likely to be implemented to ban sale of liquor in Bihar. This was announced during prohibition day function by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Thursday in Patna.
Nitish Kumar who had earlier during his election campaign had promised to bring stringent laws to impose a ban on liquor said, “I have asked my officials to draw strategies and bring laws to prohibit liquor sale in Bihar.”
Speaking on the issue further he said “new liquor laws will be implemented from April 1, 2016 onwards”. It is however still not clear whether there will be a blanket ban or partial ban on liquor in the state but according to business analysts in Bihar, “if decision of prohibition is implemented in Bihar it will cause a major financial loss. Bihar at this juncture cannot afford to such huge losses.”
They said besides major financial losses to the state, sale of liquor will also suffer as Bihar is the third largest populated state in the country. In the current fiscal year Bihar had gained around Rs 3,000 to Rs 3,500 crore from the excise taxes and was hoping to see steep rise in the excise taxes in the next fiscal year. “Bihar will face a loss of almost '4,000 crore by the next fiscal year,” one of the business analysts said after Kumar made the announcement.
Nitish Kumar while speaking on the issue further said, they had tried to bring laws to ban liquor in Bihar in the year 1977-78 when Janata Party government was in power but due to several factors they couldn’t impose the ban. “Seeing people’s problem particulaly women i have asked my officials to work out plans and strategy to implement the law,” the CM said.
According to JD(U) sources, CM has also asked officials to also draw strategies to stop all efforts from the liquor mafias to launch a parallel alcohol industry growth in the state. “we will fully support total prohibition in Bihar. Country liquor as well as foreign liquor should be part of this ban,”former deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi tweeted.
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