In a bid to encourage safe drinking habits, the Government has introduced a mildly-alcoholic drink in the market here which is expected to sell as a substitute for Mahua –a tribal drink made with the flower of the Mahua tree and brewed locally with no quality control whatsoever.
While neighbouring Chhattisgarh has started bottling Mahua and supplying them to retail outlets amidst uproar by local traders, Jharkhand had other thoughts. Mahua here was locally brewed in unhygienic ways near river banks, said officials from the State Excise Department. And with the growing cases of deaths caused by spurious liquor in the State, the department wanted to tighten the noose around consumption of alcoholic beverages that have not undergone any quality assessment, they added.
“The drink that we have introduced as a substitute for Mahua is manufactured in West Bengal and sold in plastic bottles here. The drink has been priced aggressively in order to make it a convenient replacement for Mahua,” said Excise Commissioner Bhor Singh Yadav, adding that the alcoholic content in the drink has also been set at a level that gives the consumer an intoxicating effect similar to Mahua.
This drink, however, has zero content of Mahua and is distilled exactly like whiskey is. At present, four companies operating out of West Bengal are manufacturing, packaging and supplying this drink to the Jharkhand State Beverage Corporation Limited. A 600ml bottle of this drink is sold at only Rs 40. The aggressive pricing ensures that a person addicted to Mahua can think of it as an alternative that will not cost him more Mahua, said Yadav. “Manufacturing plants will be set up in Jharkhand also,” he added.
Yadav said that one of the functions of the Excise Department is to check consumption of unauthentic, spurious or unmonitored liquor. The initiative, he added, was taken to ensure that even people addicted to Mahua drink alcohol that has passed all the quality checks and is safe for consumption. However, the State is yet to impose any regulation on the manufacture, sale and consumption of Hadia, another tribal drink that is prepared in almost every household in the interiors.
Several cases of deaths caused by consumption of spurious liquor were reported in the State in the past couple of years. In 2019, the Excise Department and police sent at least 192 persons to jail on charges of manufacturing, transporting or selling liquor illegally in Jharkhand.
The Excise Department here has set a target of generating Rs 1,800 crore through liquor trade this financial year. The State Government in August 2017 had started retail of liquor on its own and imposed a prohibition on private liquor stores across Jharkhand. The move, however, did not yield desired results, sources said. Teething problems kept on haunting the Government. Jharkhand had around 1450 private liquor shops which were shut down after July 31, 2017. The Government started retailing liquor from 208 shops on August 1, 2017. The number of shops gradually increased, but long queues and ruckus outside the shops became a common sight.
However, the State handed over liquor retail to private players on April 1 this year. Out of the 1634 sanctioned private shops here, a total of 1595 are operating at present.
