In a fresh Bihar Booze tragedy in Siwan district, at least three people were dead and many were sick over consumption of spurious liquor.
What is the incident?
The mishap occurred in the Bala village of Bhopatpur panchayat under the Maharaajganj subdivision. Janak Bean alias Janak Prasad and Naresh Bean of the Bala village complained of stomach pain. They were taken to the Siwan district hospital where the doctors present declared them as brought dead.
After this, the district administration rushed into action and started a health camp in the village to identify more people. Many people are reported to be ill and death tolls can also increase significantly. Sub-Divisional Public Grievance Officer in Siwan, Abhishek Chandan said that one of the deceased persons died after consuming spurious liquor while the other one was declared brought dead in the Siwan hospital.
He also added that the cause of death will be possible to share after the post-mortem comes out. This is not the only incident from Bihar
Since the decision of Nitish Kumar to ban liquor from Bihar, there has been a high rise of spurious liquor in Bihar. As a result, many people have lost their life. Last month there was a tragic incident at Chapra, in which at least 70 people dead and many were also I’ll. Due to this, there was a huge political backlash which led to a controversial statement from Nitish Kumar, the Chief Minister of Bihar.
According to many news reports it has been found that polyethylene-based liquor is easily available in Bihar and that is too at only ₹50. Last year due to spurious liquor,15 dead in Saran, 13 in Nalanda, 8 in Banka, 5 in Buxar, 4 in Bhagalpur, 3 in Gopalganj, 3 in Siwan, and 2 in West Champaran.
Why has the booze ban failed?
The Supreme Court had earlier also asked the Bihar government for a social and legislative impact assessment of its prohibition law. The Bihar Prohibition and Excise Act were passed in 2016 “to enforce, implement and promote complete prohibition of liquor and intoxicants in the territory of the state of Bihar.”Another major reason behind high fatalities is due to being afraid of getting arrested. Many people prefer not to get themselves admitted to hospitals and enter legal battles.
Corruption from top to bottom level has created many holes in the implementation of the scheme as it has allowed a nexus and channel of the Liquor mafia which is operating across the state . Blaming the government alone isn’t even the end of the matter as the behavior and societal habits of people have failed to change despite so many deaths in the state and so many arrests by the police across the state . The ban on legal liquor has opened the channels of Illegal liquor due to which people are falling I’ll.
Is a Liquor Ban feasible?
The liquor ban model of both Gujarat and Bihar has failed due to the easy availability of spurious and country-made liquor. In India maintaining an entire leakproof setup is very difficult due to the scale of corruption due to which stringent implementation of rules is very difficult. As per an interview in Times of India, Bihar excise minister Sunil Kumar had said in January that deaths from hooch had been happening even before the law was introduced in 2016 and such cases are also recorded in states where liquor is not banned.
“Hooch tragedies claimed 112 lives in Punjab in 2020, 99 in UP in 2019, 345 in Karnataka in 2008, 102 in Maharashtra in 2015, 172 in West Bengal in 2011, 32 in Odisha in 2012, and 157 in Assam in 2019,” he said. Check on spurious liquor is a nationwide requirement at the moment.
