The State government’s decision to drastically reduce the availability of liquor regardless of domestic demand has raised the spectre of the ascendancy of criminal networks, poised to benefit from the smuggling and retail of contraband liquor, according to State police and excise enforcers.
The Excise Department, the frontline agency in the fight against bootlegging and drugs, seemed ill-equipped to combat the emerging threat.
Quoting from an internal report, officials say the department’s staff strength is 4,427, the same as it was in 1968. The report fixes the present requirement at 21,938.
It also calls for augmentation of the thinly staffed inter-State Intelligence Force, creation of 16 new Excise ranges for focussed enforcement, more border check-posts and plainclothes units.
From now on, law enforcers would invest much effort, time, and public money in preventing the inflow of contraband liquor from neighbouring Karnataka and Tamil Nadu where it is legal, available on almost all days, and markedly cheaper because of the tax difference. Kerala shared a porous and traditionally ill-policed border with these States and the task seemed an uphill one. The liquor policy has also resulted in criminalisation of the sale and consumption of alcohol on unlicensed premises.
Law enforcers say they have braced themselves for an overwhelming swell in small-scale law-breaking in the wake of closure of bars.
They foresee a significant increase in illegal “watering holes.”The government has directed the police and excise to crack down on petty offences on the premise that only a zero tolerance approach towards lesser breaches of liquor rules would help it forestall larger ones.
