Nitish Kumar picks April 1 for Bihar to go dry

New laws are likely to be implemented to ban the sale of liquor in Bihar, chief minister Nitish Kumar announced at a “Prohibition Day” function in Patna on Thursday.

Mr Kumar, who had promised during his election campaign to bring stringent laws to ban liquor, said, “I have asked my officials to draw up strategies and bring laws to prohibit liquor sales in Bihar.”

This newspaper was the first to report the move towards prohibition in Bihar, in a Page One report in the edition of November 24, 2015.

The chief minister added, “New liquor laws will be implemented from April 1, 2016 onwards.” It is, however, still not clear whether there will be a blanket ban or partial ban on liquor in the state, but, according to business analysts in Bihar, “if a decision of prohibition is implemented in Bihar it will cause a major financial loss. Bihar at this juncture cannot afford such huge losses.”

The analysts said that Bihar, which has the third-largest population in the country and in the current fiscal year had gained around Rs 3,000 to Rs 3,500 crore from the excise duty on liquor, was hoping to see a steep rise in excise taxes in the next fiscal.

“Bihar will face a loss of almost Rs 4,000 crore by the next fiscal,” one business analyst said after the chief minister’s announcement in Patna on Thursday.

Mr Nitish Kumar, speaking further on the issue, said they had tried to bring laws to ban liquor in Bihar in 1977-78, when the Janata Party government was in power, but due to several factors they couldn’t impose the ban.

“Seeing people’s problems, particularly of women, I have asked my officials to work out plans and a strategy to implement the law,” Mr Kumar said.

According to Janata Dal (United) sources, the chief minister has also asked officials to come up with strategies to stop all efforts by liquor mafias to launch an illegal parallel alcohol industry in the state. While Union minister and BJP senior leader Giriraj took a swipe at Mr Kumar, asking him to discuss “with Lalu Yadav before taking important decisions”, other BJP leaders supported the move.

Senior BJP leader and former deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi tweeted to say, “We will fully support total prohibition in Bihar. Country liquor as well as foreign liquor should be part of this ban.”