Nitish Kumar govt imposes total liquor ban in Bihar

The Nitish Kumar government on Tuesday imposed a complete ban on liquor in Bihar. The state Cabinet, at its meeting here, approved a proposal by the excise and prohibition department to impose a complete ban on the sale and consumption of liquor across the state, including on IMFL brands.

Announcing the decision, chief minister Nitish Kumar said his government, which had earlier decided to allow the sale and consumption of Indian-made foreign liquor brands in certain urban areas, had now, on growing public demand, decided to impose a complete ban.

“We didn’t not expect this kind of public response, we have now decided to impose a complete ban on liquor with immediate effect. No licence will be given and no hotels and bars in the state will be allowed to serve liquor after this announcement”, Mr Kumar said.

According to one estimate, Bihar will lose around Rs 4,000 crores in revenue due to this total ban. The CM said the state government had earlier planned to launch several awareness drives and to create anti-liquor perception among people on the ill-effects of drinking alcohol in urban areas before banning IMFL, but “the kind of environment we wanted is already there, they (women) didn’t want the government to open liquor shops, they wanted a complete ban. What more do we want This has become a social movement and we felt the time has come to bring social change in Bihar”.

“Now there will be no discrimination, and both rural and urban areas will face a similar ban”, Mr Kumar added.

With this, Bihar becomes the fourth state in the country to go completely dry, after Gujarat, Nagaland and Mizoram. Sources said the state government was compelled to ban IMFL brands after women started protesting against the move to allow consumption in urban areas. Earlier, a ban was imposed on the manufacture, sale and consumption of country liquor in rural areas.