Liquor blocking Tamil Nadu's development: Survey

Chennai: According to the survey done by Allen&Miller Inc based in USA along with an NGO called ‘Nature Watchdog’, addiction to liquor has been identified as the worst among the maladies hurting the state’s development and the overall health of its people.

Thirty nine per cent of the people, who answered the elaborate questionnaire from the survey teams on various vital issues, said madhu (liquor) was the foremost problem blocking the state’s positive growth. Interestingly, the anti-liquor percentage was much higher among the rural people compared to their urban cousins—51.2% rural as against 26.7% urban.

City people saw corruption as the bigger malady as 40.6% of them strongly believed that eradicating corruption, if at all possible, would quickly and certainly trigger positive growth, all-round. To their rural cousins, corruption did not seem to matter that much, a mere 29.6% of them felt it was the society’s worst enemy.

To the question as to which political party, among the many that have been promising total prohibition if voted to power, could be trusted most on that pledge, the PMK scored the best with 56.6% of the respondents voting for it while ‘runner-up’ DMK got 20.7 per cent.