Patna: The government in Bihar has seized more than 200 buildings, whose owners used the premises to illegally sell liquor.
The Indian state imposed prohibition in April last year.
The latest action is aimed at ensuring the state is totally free of liquor consumption, which is blamed for domestic violence and other social evils, officials said.
Authorities said they had confiscated altogether 201 buildings and land plots since the new liquor law was imposed in Bihar in April 2016.
“We have confiscated 201 buildings that were being used for running illegal alcohol trade in total violation of excise laws. They have now become the property of the state government,” Bihar’s additional director-general of police, S.K. Singhal, told journalists on Friday.
This is said to be largest ever seizure of landed properties under the new excise law.
Earlier the state government had confiscated bungalows and other properties of some six top government officials — two of them being from the Indian Administrative Service and Indian Police Service — after they were caught in corruption cases.
The confiscated houses of these officials have been converted into the schools or orphanages for unprivileged children.
It is believed the buildings confiscated for violating liquor laws too could be used for similar purposes to set an example for the society.
How the state government has taken as a challenge the duty to strictly implement the prohibition is further underlined by the fact that the government has initiated severe actions against more than 60 police officials for failing to check supply of liquor in their respective jurisdiction.
Four officials have been dismissed from service for helping liquor traders.
Authorities have also confiscated 2,524 vehicles, including 708 four-wheelers, for using them for transporting liquor. The seized vehicles include banks’ cash vans and ambulances.
Authorities have further destroyed over 260,000 litres of seized liquor in the state.
“We have declared to make Bihar a liquor-free state and at no cost, people will be allowed to defeat our plan,” the chief minister has repeatedly said in his speeches.
As per an official report, there has been a 24 per cent decrease in incidents of murder, 26 per cent in robbery, 42 per cent in kidnapping, 19 per cent in burglary and six per cent in rape cases as a result of prohibition law in the state. Apart from that, road accidents too have come down by 20 per cent post prohibition, a government report claims.
