NEW DELHI - It is no secret that India has a deadly problem of illicit and spurious liquor consumption. Cheap but dodgy alcohol, often spiked with industrial-grade chemicals, has claimed as many as 5,900 lives between 2017 and 2021.
One of the key epicentres of this crisis is the north Indian state of Punjab, which accounted for 780 of these fatalities and ranks among the top five states with the highest prevalence of alcohol dependence.
The state has now come up with an unconventional solution to try and tackle this menace. It will launch a cheap whisky to stem the consumption of illicit and unsafe alcohol.
This information was submitted by Punjab’s state government to the country’s Supreme Court in an affidavit on Dec 10, in connection with an ongoing case that concerns large-scale illicit liquor manufacturing in the state.
The drink, produced at authorised distilleries and expected to be available in the market by March 2023, will have a 40 per cent alcohol content. Each 180ml pouch of this liquor will cost around 25 rupees (40 Singapore cents), compared with around 100 rupees for a litre of potentially fatal hooch.
Field officers of the state’s excise department have been asked to assess the demand for this liquor variant and to eventually make it available in areas that are prone to consumption of illicit and unsafe liquor.
Mr Ajay Pal, a lawyer who represents the Punjab government in Supreme Court cases, said offering this safe drink is one of the many plans to tackle the spread of spurious liquor.
Such liquor in Punjab is made using alcohol produced from raw materials like sugarcane. Bootleggers often add adulterants such as methanol to increase the drink’s potency. Methanol is easily available and used as an industrial solvent to help create products such as inks, adhesives and dyes, but even 60ml of it can be deadly for an adult.
“People who die in hooch tragedies are mostly from the poor and working class who do not have the means to pay for safe and good liquor, which is why they fall for this cheap spurious liquor,” Mr Pal told The Straits Times.
However, an official from the excise department, who did not wish to be named, said the substitute drink could face challenges in gaining acceptance among those addicted to the “kick” of far more potent illicit liquor.
In one of Punjab’s worst liquor tragedies, 123 people died in 2020 after consuming illegally brewed liquor containing methanol sourced from a paint dealer.
According to a 2019 government study, alcohol is the most common psychoactive substance used by Indians, with 14.6 per cent of the population aged between 10 and 75 consuming it. Use of alcohol is considerably higher among men (27.3 per cent) compared with women (1.6 per cent).
Country liquor – a category used in India to refer to locally made drinks, including those illegal and unsafe – accounts for 30 per cent of alcoholic beverages consumed in India.
Production of illicit liquor is a profitable business in India, as bootleggers can evade high taxes imposed by the government on alcoholic drinks and sell enormous quantities of their moonshine to the poor at cheap rates.
It is entrenched even in states where prohibition is in force. The eastern state of Bihar, which bans the sale and consumption of liquor, reported yet another hooch tragedy last week with the deaths of at least 80 individuals.
A 2019 report by the United States-based Transnational Alliance to Combat Illicit Trade recommended that state governments in India improve access to legal alcoholic products at affordable prices, besides raising awareness about the harm of illicit liquor. It suggested incentivising local producers to legalise production of their home brews, to bring them into the regulated sector.
It also called for greater enforcement of laws and imposition of penalties necessary to deter bootleggers, as well as rationalising tax policies to ensure they do not incentivise illicit trade in alcohol.
Punjab’s excise department has said it would also strengthen its campaign against illicit liquor by putting its awareness drives on a “war footing”, recruiting more inspectors and deploying greater resources, including drones and sniffer dogs.
But not everyone is convinced that the state’s move to introduce a cheap country liquor variant is a good one.
“Any quantity of alcohol is harmful to the body. It is not as if the consumer’s liver or kidneys won’t get damaged,” said Mr Parmjit Singh Sandhu, founder of the Jeevandaan Foundation in Punjab which runs programmes to help alcohol addicts recover.
“The focus should be on reducing consumption of alcohol as much as possible,” he pointed out.
