Joshimath, January 22 (Harish Chandola)

THE UP Government proposes to increase its yearly excise revenue to Rs 100 crore (5,000 million) by promoting and popularizing liquor in the five districts of Garhwal. This is being done "for the welfare of the people", stated state Minister of Excise Narayan Ram Das in Almora last week. At the moment only permit holders can buy liquor in these districts. Soon liquor sale will be made free, according to the Minister.

After having scrapped the bottom of its treasury barrel, the bankrupt UP government has been searching for ways of increasing its revenue. It has been able to pay teachers and many other employees for months at a time.

To justify the new policy to sell more liquor in the hills, the Minister said excise from it would become the main source of revenue for the proposed Uttarakhand state. Excise duty on liquor sold in the hills yields Rs 200 crores (2,000 million) a year at the moment.

The minister's statement has raised the hackles of hill women as they feel he has made light of their struggle to end the evil of drinking. That struggle, he said, was based only on what the women had experienced. Most men, on the other hand, wanted liquor to be sold freely, he said. The hills, he argued, were flooded with illicit liquor, much of it of the spurious kind. By abolishing the permit system and making it available freely, people without permits would not have to buy and consume smuggled and adulterated liquor, injurious to their health, which resulted in immediate deaths from time to time. Making liquor sale free therefore was a welfare measure, so the Minister tried to convince the people. The women were not buying his argument however.

The government would also earn revenue from its legalised sale. No excise duty could be levied on what was sold illegally.

The new policy will violate the pledge given by the ruling BJP before it was elected to power that it will make the hills liquor free. The minister said illicit liquor was responsible for crimes that thrived under a regime of restrictions.

Unhygienic and substandard secret distillation gave birth to Mafia, which organised its smuggling, transportation and distribution. The one and only way to fight this parallel system was to free liquor sale. Then there would be no need for people to drink substandard liquor that was sold in secretly, he said.