Statistics from the Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation (TASMAC) shows that the sale of Indian Made Foreign Liquor in Tirupur district stands near Rs. 650 crore in the first six months of 2014 calendar year.
Turnover The figure is staggering when one takes into account that the turnover from the IMFL sale in the district for an entire calendar year in 2006 was just Rs. 510.5 crore and that in 2007 calendar year was Rs. 610.2 crore.
Official sources told The Hindu that the turnover from the IMFL sale during 2014 was poised to register all time high when going by the current projections.
“Last year, the annual turnover for 2013 calendar year was a little over Rs. 1,000 crore,” sources pointed out.
Saying that the growing incidence of alcohol consumption among younger people was becoming a matter for concern, Indian Medical Association (Tirupur branch) president J. Ravi told The Hindu that easier availability of liquor was one of the main reasons for increase in its consumption even though the reasons for drinking liquor vary among sections of society.
Disbursal of daily and weekly wages to labourers in industrial clusters like apparels, also take the consumers more frequently to the liquor sales outlets.
According to the TASMAC sources, brandy is the favourite among all the IMFL varieties sold, as it is cheaper.
Outlets P. Somasundaram, a social activist and secretary of Tirupur Consumer Voice, pointed out that decreasing the number of liquor outlets would not bring down the consumption as people who badly wanted to get bacchanalian pleasures.
“Total ban on sales of liquor can be tried out as stopping people consuming IMFL products through education will take longer time and might not succeed fully,” he said.
