An entire village in Bihar has been fined for consuming alcohol. A collective fine was imposed on all the 50 households of the village in Islampur block following recovery of liquor bottles.
CM Nitish Kumar has made Bihar a dry state like Modiji’s Gujarat. After the stringent liquor prohibition was passed in April 5, manufacture, transport, sale and consumption of country liquor in the state — and restricted the sale of non-country or ‘Indian Made Foreign Liquor’ (IMFL) was banned in Bihar. Perhaps, this stringent ban is an attempt to promote, Modiji’s ‘Make in India’ campaign as the production and consumption of ‘toddy’ the fermented extract of the sugar palm, an intoxicant that is consumed widely in the villages and by large numbers of the urban poor is still allowed, though with restrictions.
The district administration of Nalanda imposed a fine of ₹5,000 on every household of Kailashpuri village as collective penalty for violating the prohibition law and this is probably the first instance of application of the tough prohibition law in the state by imposing the ‘collective fine’ as incorporated in the amended law.
Even though the law was implemented back in April, the recent amendment made it more stringent and provided more teeth to it as with lack of strict measures, liquor trade was flourishing in the state. The foremost contributor was the Indian Railways as many goods trains dubbed as ‘Maikhana Express’ were plying to provide people their daily dose of happiness. Now the law imposes a 7-10 years’ jail and fine up to ₹10 lakh for illegal trade and transport of liquor, selling or serving industrial liquor to consumers and even coming inebriated from other states attracts stringent fines.
This can be seen as a bid to lure the already ‘lured’ female voters in his state, as Nitish fulfilled his electoral promise of banning alcohol after granting 50% reservation to females in sarpanch elections back in 2006. This has definitely increased his popularity with the women voters of the state and has helped him create a ‘caste free’ vote bank of women, a very smart move considering the recent caste based troubles pestering his arch-rival Modiji. Good one Nitishji!
