Economics, statistics of liquor sale forces government to open alcohol shops

Liquor shops and vends opened across the country on Monday after the government decided to allow the sale of alcohol. Lakhs of people lined up outside liquor vends, flouting social distancing norms and creating a riot-like situation even as the rest of the country was under the coronavirus COVID-19 lockdown. Similar scenes were witnessed on Tuesday as impatient crowds were seen outside liquor shops across the country, pushing and jostling to buy a bottle of their favourite drink.

Even as Delhi government on late Monday night announced a 70 per cent 'special corona fee' on alcohol, people were not discouraged as they continue to stand in many kilometres long queues. In the sweltering heat of May, people were seen standing in a queue to buy liquor of their choice across the country.

India is a country where alcohol drinking claims 2,60,000 lives every year, 29 people die every hour due to alcohol drinking while 712 people die every day.

According to government data, around 16 crore people in India drink alcohol regularly. In India, no person under the age of 21 is allowed to drink alcohol, but 75 per cent of the youth learn to drink before they turn 21, said a survey conducted in different cities of India.

On average, 594 million litres of liquor are sold in India every year, but by 2022, the consumption of alcohol is expected to increase to 1680 million litres. Between 2010 and 2017, the per capita alcohol consumption in India increased by about 38 per cent. Till 2010, a person in India used to drink an average of 4.25 litres of alcohol and it has now increased to about 6 litres.

With almost 16 crore people drinking in India, if the price of a bottle of alcohol is Rs 500 on an average, then all these people drink liquor worth Rs 8,000 crore. Notably, an average plate of food costs Rs 30. If these 16 crore people spare the amount they spent on alcohol to feed the poor, about 4.5 crore Indians can be provided with food for a month.

In 2018, the government earned around Rs 3.10 lakh crore from the sale of liquor in India. The 29 states and two Union Territories earn an average of Rs 15,000 crore from the sale of liquor every month. Uttar Pradesh earned more than Rs 31,000 crore from the sale of liquor in the year 2019-20, followed by Karnataka where Rs 20,950 crore came through the sale of liquor in the same period.

On the first day of the concession in Uttar Pradesh, liquor worth Rs 100 crore was sold in merely 9 hours. Surprisingly, liquor worth Rs 70 to 80 crore is sold every day in the state on normal days. On Monday, liquor worth Rs 45 crore were sold in Karnataka, where the sale chart today reached Rs 197 crore.

Earlier, people belonging to Tablighi Jamaat and even singer Kanika Kapoor have been blamed for spreading coronavirus across the country. However, with lakhs of people flouted rules of social distancing for the sake of alcohol, coronavirus could spread at an even faster rate

Notably, similar scenes played out in towns and rural centres in states such as Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, West Bengal, and Delhi, where the fear of COVID-19 eclipsed the eagerness to access alcohol after more than 40 dry days.