Bengaluru: No money for booze! Excise wing hit hard

Ballari: People may be struggling to find drinking water in drought hit  Hyderabad-Karnataka, but it is their other “drinking” habit that is causing concern to  the excise department.

With liquor sales falling in the 'rice-bowl' of the state during the 2015-16 financial year, Ballari  deputy commissioner of excise has issued a notice to the excise inspector of Siruguppa circle seeking an explanation for the dip in liquor sale.

But Mr Anand, CPI , excise department, Siruguppa, which along with Ballari and Koppal districts, forms the 'rice-bowl of Karnataka' has a ready response.  

Not as many are buying  liquor as before in the region because alcohol guzzling farmers don’t have money to spare with their crops withering in the dry, hot weather and most  agricultural labourers migrating to the metros in search of work, he says.

The temperature here has been hovering over 42 degree Celsius for the last fortnight. But deciding to collect facts to back their therory, the Siruguppa circle excise authorities shot off a letter to the assistant director of agriculture asking for details of  the farmers situation.

“We request you to provide details of various crops  grown by the farmers and the extent of area used for growing a particular crop,” they wrote.

To their relief and taking them off the hook for any laxity in the sale of liquor, officials of the agriculture department informed the excise officers that the farmers had harvested only one paddy crop as against the usual two owing to the lack of water in the canals of the Tungabhadra river.