The city and district committees of All-India Democratic Women’s Association staged a protest at the Jagadamba junction here on Wednesday against the new excise policy of the government.
The participants burnt a copy of the new policy.
A large number of families were affected, women were facing a lot of hardships as more than half of the family income was being spent on liquor by the men folk, violence against women has increased, youth were taking to liquor at an early age and dying young but the Government instead of putting a control on the sale of liquor was making all efforts to get as much revenue as possible from the sale of liquor, AIDWA said.
AIDWA leaders said the Government was not ready to lose the revenue from excise department and there was not mention of eliminating the belt shops in the new policy.
Instead of establishing ration shops, schools and hospitals on the basis of population, the government was setting up liquor shops on population basis according to the new policy.
Ministers, people’s representatives, ruling party president and others were part of the liquor syndicates, the AIDWA alleged. These people would not like to lose making money from sale of liquor, so the inaction.
