Nitish's Bihar Goes Dry

Nitish comes good on his election promise. But in appeasing one constituency, he has sacrificed a significant source of revenue and paved the way for the illicit liquor business.

- Amitabh Srivastava

The informer was reliable; but his story sounded very unusual to Bettiah Additional Superintendent of Police Rajesh Kumar. Someone in Jhhakra village, just about 25 km from Kumar’s office, had built an additional septic tank in his house just to store illegally procured spirit.

Unusual but worth a probe: Rajesh led a team of sleuths to raid the house only to find an ordinary toilet basin fitted over the tank. A booster pump installed next to it, however, gave the real purpose away. The cops used the same pump to suck the spirit out of the underground tank. It was more than 12,000 litres, good enough to satisfy the drinkers of the district for a month.litres, good enough to satisfy the drinkers of the district for a month.

The cops also stumbled upon spurious Indian-made foreign liquor (IMFL) kept in a jar. But Indrashan Sah, the man who built the underground liquor vault, managed to escape.

While the raid was conducted on the night of March 3, nearly a month before the sale of country liquor was banned in Bihar on April 1, it only confirmed fears that as the administration prepared itself to impose prohibition, the bootleggers too had been preparing to make a killing. Subsequent statewide raids have confirmed as much.

In fact, many of Bihar’s villages like Jhhakra are closer to Nepal—geographically and otherwise; which influences their culture and livelihood—than Patna, where decisions are taken on what to drink and what not.

THE CM’S TURN

Though Bihar began with partial prohibition from April 1, confining the ban to the sale and consumption of country liquor while permitting commerce in IMFL and premium foreign liquor through state-run outlets, Nitish Kumar switched gears in four days, ordering complete prohibition on April 5.