Over 3 lakh held for violating liquor law in Bihar so far

Over 3.46 lakh people have been arrested for violating the liquor law in Bihar so far, Prohibition, Excise and Registration Minister Sunil Kumar told the legislative Assembly on Tuesday.

Among them 5,000 people have been arrested from Punjab, Haryana and Jharkhand for illegally supplying liquor in dry Bihar, the minister said.

While replying to his department's budgetary demand, he said the government agencies have also seized 53 lakh litres of country-made liquor and 97 lakh litres of India Made Foreign Liquor till February this year.

The Nitish Kumar government has put a total ban on the sale and consumption of alcohol, local as well as foreign brand, since April 1, 2016.

He said a police station will be opened at a place where godown was located in Ramkrishna Nagar on the bypass road in the state capital from where police had seized liquor in huge quantity.

Referring to the opposition charge that liquor is being sold under the patronage of police and civil administration, Kumar, himself an IPS officer who joined politics after retiring from DG rank, said that 186 police personnel and eight excise department staff have been sacked from the service on this count.

Not only this, 60 SHOs will not be appointed on this post for the next 10 years as punishment, Kumar added.

In order to dispel the notion that prohibition has adversely affected tourism in the state, the minister said the state on the other hand has witnessed more than a 21 per cent increase in the number of tourists -- both foreign and domestic -- between 2015-19.

Stating that liquor mafias will be arrested and a speedy trial will be conducted against them, the minister asserted that their properties will be auctioned after confiscating them.