Kerala government reaffirms liquor ban commitment post Supreme Court setback

Following the Supreme Court's direction to the Kerala Government not to impose a ban on liquor bars and to maintain a status quo till September 30, the state government reaffirmed its commitment to close all bars. Kerala Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala said here on Thursday that the state government will carefully examine the apex court's verdict and take appropriate action, but added that government aimed to achieve total prohibition in the state.

"The court has given a direction to file a fresh affidavit before the High Court before the 30th of this month. We will carefully examine the court verdict and take appropriate action, but our firm commitment is closure all the bars and to achieve total prohibition stage by stage. So, we are not going back from our decision at present, and we will present our case before the honorable high court in the due course," said Chennithala.

He also added that the decision had been taken on the basis of the election manifesto of United Democratic Front (UDF), which said that if they come to power, then it will implement prohibition stage by stage. "All of a sudden you cannot impose total prohibition in the state; it will create so many problems, so our intention is to have stage by stage prohibition and to achieve total prohibition in the state. We are going to present affidavit in the court and today the UDF is meeting in Trivandrum and we will collectively take a decision on that," he further added.

Opposition Leader V S Achuthanandan, however, welcomed the Supreme Court's stay of the liquor ban. The Oomen Chandy-led Congress government had announced in August that it would make Kerala an alcohol-free state in the next ten years. Kerala has the highest per capita consumption of alcohol in the country and experts feel that the state will incur an annual loss of Rs 8,000 to 9,000 crore due to the ban.