BBC: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nine years after imposing a statewide alcohol ban to curb addiction, domestic violence, and financial ruin among its poorest families, Bihar – India’s poorest state – still struggles to gauge the policy’s effectiveness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The gaps in implementation became glaring as the BBC shadowed Bihar officials in a misty October morning raid on bootleggers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Armed excise officers, with a sniffer dog, sped across the Ganges on a boat to raid an illegal distillery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On reaching the outskirts of the capital, Patna, the team found a ramshackle setup of a dozen metal drums – part of a makeshift apparatus fermenting jaggery, a type of cane sugar, into country liquor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Vapour rose from the drums embedded in the riverside mud, the surfaces still warm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The officers said the site was active minutes earlier, but the alcohol-makers had fled by the time they arrived.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“They often get tipped off before a raid,” an officer who didn’t wish to be named said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite these enforcement gaps, alcohol prohibition remains firmly in place in Bihar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Passed in 2016 by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar after persistent demands from women’s groups, the law was among the factors that helped his Janata Dal (United) – Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) alliance clinch a decisive state election victory earlier this month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
State officials tout the policy’s success by pointing to big numbers: since the law took effect, 1.1 million cases have been registered and 650,000 people convicted for violations. But the devil lies in the detail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
More than 99% of these convictions are for consumption, rather than production, selling, or transport of illicit liquor. Moreover, alcohol remains widely available in the black market in Bihar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the six weeks leading to the recently held election, illicit alcohol worth more than 522 million rupees ($6.26 million, \u00a34.96 million) was seized from across the state.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BBC: Nine years after imposing a statewide alcohol ban to curb addiction, domestic violence, and financial ruin among its poorest families, Bihar – India’s poorest state – still struggles to gauge the policy’s effectiveness. The gaps in implementation became glaring as the BBC shadowed Bihar officials in a misty October morning raid on bootleggers. Armed excise officers, with a sniffer dog, sped across the Ganges on a boat to raid an illegal distillery. On reaching the outskirts of the capital, Patna, the team found a ramshackle setup of a dozen metal drums – part of a makeshift apparatus fermenting jaggery,… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":52169,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-in-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=52168"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52168\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52170,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52168\/revisions\/52170"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/52169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=52168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=52168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=52168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}