A notification issued by the home department last month amended the Maharashtra Country Liquor Rules, 1973, to let the bars open at breakfast time.
Pro-prohibition activists are furious over the state government's decision to allow country-liquor bars to open as early as 8 am.
A notification issued by the home department last month amended the Maharashtra Country Liquor Rules, 1973, to let the bars open at breakfast time.
"A licensee holding license in form CL-III shall not sell country liquor, except during the hours from 8 am to 10 pm," it reads.
Earlier, country-liquor bars in areas covered by A-Class municipal corporations such as Mumbai could conduct business from 10 am to midnight. For other areas, the timing was 10 am to 10 pm.
"However, these timings were breached often. Lack of adequate enforcement officials meant that these violations went unchecked. Sometimes, our personnel would turn a blind eye to such flouting of timing for obvious reasons," said a senior state excise department official, on the condition of anonymity.
He said many manual labourers are wont to consume liquor in the morning before they start work.
Maharashtra has around 4,272 CL-III licences. Country liquor is consumed by the toiling class and hence accounts for the largest volumes in terms of sales.
Social activist Paromita Goswami of Shramik Elgar lashed out at the decision and demanded it be withdrawn considering its impact on health and women's safety.
"This is a liquor-loving government which is not concerned with the welfare of women. It claims to uphold values of social reformers like Mahatma Phule, Chhatrapati Shahu Maharaj and Dr Ambedkar and yet it is allowing liquor to be sold at hours when people usually drink tea. This will destroy the next generation," said Goswami, who is among those who have been pushing for prohibition in Chandrapur district since 2015.
In the fiscal 2017-18, country liquor sales across the state fell 4.02% to 3,126.09 lakh bulk litres (BL) compared to 3,256.99 BL in 2016-17. By October 2018, sales were up 15.52% to 2,014.23 lakh BL against previous year's 1,743.58 lakh BL.
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