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Public resist relocating of liquor shops in Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu government decided to open new outlets in the interior roads leading to the national and the state highways has triggered strong protests from local residents across the state.

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When the Supreme Court ordered closure of liquor shops along the national and the state highways, Tamil Nadu suffered the highest revenue loss in the country with the closure of 3,320 out of the total 5,700 liquor outlets run by state-owned sole retailer Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation (TASMAC).

With the state getting one-fourth of its revenue from the TASMAC, which is crucial to funding its freebies and other social welfare schemes, Tamil Nadu government decided to open new outlets in the interior roads leading to the national and the state highways has triggered strong protests from local residents across the state. For the last one week alone, the protest varying from road roko to demonstrations were reported across the state.

On Tuesday, residents of Samalpuram in Tirupur district protested against opening of a liquor outlet in their locality and staged a protest but police launched a brutal lathi charge on protestors including women.The protest were reported on Wednesday in several districts including Erode, Tirupur, Karur and Tirunelveli against opening of liquor outlets in residential areas.

The Apex court order came at a time when the AIADMK government decided to implement prohibition in phases and closed 1000 retail outlets and reduced its working hour to 10 hours a day. Tamil Nadu government had estimated a loss of Rs 2100 crore following the closure of 1000 liquor retail shops (another 500 shops closed in February this year) following its decision to implement prohibition in the phased manner. “The state may witness further revenue loss of Rs 7000 crore to Rs 7500 crore because of the Supreme Court’s ban,” a senior government official said. In 2015-16, Tamil Nadu government earned Rs 24,113 crore through excise revenue and sales tax on liquor. In 2014-15, it got Rs 22,429 crore.

PMK youth wing president and former union health minister Dr Anbumani Ramadoss said that the state government has unleashed violent attack through police on those protesting against opening of liquor outlets to prevent spread of such protest to other places. “The Edappadi Palanisami government is showing keen interest to open liquor shops rather than address the acute shortage of drinking water faced across the state,” he said, warning that if the government continued to open the liquor shops in the residential areas, his party would take legal action.

TASMAC Employees State Federation general secretary K. Thiruselvam said that if the government was keen on implementing prohibition policy, it should not relocated closed liquor shops. “Instead, it should provide alternate jobs by filling up vacancies in the government department to those who were affected the shops closure,” he said. On the estimated revenue loss, he pointed out that all the liquor shops have started witness increased footfalls and daily sale after the closure of the shops following the court order.

In the run-up to the state assembly election in 2016, the state witnessed series of campaign in favour of prohibition forcing all the political parties promise its implementation in their manifesto. The ruling AIADMK, which was dismissive of implementing prohibition citing free availability of liquor in the neighbouring states and fearing hooch tragedies, acceded to the growing demand by announcing phased implementation of prohibition if it was voted back to power. After winning the election, the chief minister J. Jayalalithaa, on her first day in office on May 24, 2016, announced closure of 500 shops and reduced the working hour of the retail outlets to 10 hours from 12 hours. 

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