Hooch deaths up, liquor sales down!

LUCKNOW: It’s a strange paradox. The increasing hooch deaths have coincided with declining sales of foreign liquor in Uttar Pradesh where the only constant seems to be the excise department’s inability to act against illicit liquor manufacturers.

After five more hooch deaths that were reported from Unnao on Sunday, taking the total number of deaths this year to a rather worrisome 54, chief minister Akhilesh Yadav ordered excise department bosses to ensure raids against the unscrupulous death merchants. While the CM’s instructions have temporarily jolted the department out of its famed slumber and suspensions of police and excise department personnel have been ordered, this ‘enthusiasm’ too would be short lived if the past is anything to go by.

After 48 hooch deaths in two different incidents in 2013, elaborate instructions were issued by the then chief secretary to “identify and arrest” the culprits. Nothing happened, then and since. A former top official told HT, “We had suggested using electronic surveillance, as well as convincing lekhpals, gram pradhans and even the village chowkidar to act as informers. But nothing much happened after the initial brouhaha.”

After markedly fewer four deaths due to consumption of illicit liquor in 2014, the spurt in number of deaths this year – 54 so far – has coincided with a dip in liquor sales, as was the case in 2013. Back then, the deaths had coincided with a slump in sales and consequent dip in revenue targets.

And while there is nothing to link the two – dip in sales and increased consumption of illicit liquor – the 54 deaths so far this year have coincided with a sudden, “rather inexplicable” decline in sale of foreign liquor in the state. So much so that the excise department had to hit the panic button asking the district magistrates to plug holes that led to a dip in the sale of the heady brew. The average decline in sales is nearly 17% from last year with some districts like Varanasi, Jhansi, Jalaun, Ballia, Basti, Sant Kabir Nagar, Lakhimpur Kheri, Sonbhadra, recording a dip of 30% or more. Even in western UP where consumption is “relatively higher”, sales have largely been sluggish.

“For instance, Saharanpur has recorded a dip of 26%,” an official said. The excise department has been set a rather stiff Rs 17,500 crore revenue target to meet in the current fiscal.

In fact, the count of foreign liquor bottles consumed kept on increasing since 2005-6 till 2012-13 when the dip was first recorded. Between 2013 and now, a record 107 deaths have been reported.

Department sources say unofficial figures could be even higher as in many cases it is hard to establish linkages between consumption and death.