Patna: The Bihar government on Tuesday imposed a complete ban on liquor in the state. The decision was taken after Cabinet gave its approval to excise and prohibition department’s proposal to impose a complete ban on sale and consumption of liquor in the state including IMFL brands.
Announcing the decision after the Cabinet meeting Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said that the government which had earlier decided to allow sale and consumption of Indian Made Foreign liquor brands in selected parts of urban areas has now after growing public demand has decided to impose a complete ban.
“We didn’t not expect this kind of public response, we have now decided to impose a complete ban on liquor with immediate effect. No license will be given and no hotels and Bars in the state will be allowed to serve liquor after this announcement”, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said.
The CM said that the government had earlier planned to launch several awareness drive and also to create anti - liquor perception among people regarding ill effect of consumption of alcohol in urban areas before banning IMFL but, “the kind of environment we wanted is already there, they (women) didn’t want the government to open liquor shops. They wanted a complete ban, what more do we want. This has become a social movement and we felt that time has come to bring social change in Bihar”.
With the decision to impose a prohibition on all kind of liquor, Bihar has become the fourth state to become complete dry after Gujarat, Nagaland and Mizoram.
According to sources the state government was compelled to ban Indian Made Foreign Liquor brands after women started protesting state government’s decision to allow consumption in urban areas.
Earlier the state government had imposed total prohibition on manufacturing, sale and consumption of all kind of country made liquor in rural areas only.
“Now there will be no discrimination both rural and urban areas will face similar kind of ban”, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said during the announcement in Patna on Tuesday.
