Govt won’t backtrack from forming new liquor policy: Excise Minister

Thiruvananthapuram: Making it clear that the Left Democratic Front government will review the existing liquor policy adopted by the United Democratic Front government, Excise and Labour Minister T.P. Ramakrishnan has said that his government would not backtrack from its plan seeing opposition from the UDF.

“The LDF government will announce a new liquor policy soon. That will be different from the UDF’s policy,” Ramakrishnan said while talking to a news channel here.

“The government is in discussions with the concerned parties to form the new policy. The setback the tourism industry faced because of the existing liquor policy is a serious issue,” the minister said.

He added that the Assembly elections had shown that the people’s opinion was against the UDF government’s liquor policy.

Earlier, the minister had called the long queues in front of liquor outlets “a disgrace to the State.”

Speaking to journalists in Kozhikode earlier in the week, Ramakrishnan had said that the raids carried out by the Excise Department in the last two months revealed that substance abuse had considerably increased in the State in spite of the existing liquor policy. The smuggling of liquor from other States and the Union Territory of Mahe had also substantially risen after the liquor ban. There was an alarming increase in the use of drugs and narcotic substances, he said.

Ramakrishnan said even the Opposition parties had no unanimous opinion on the outcome of the liquor ban. The policy of the LDF government is “liquor abstinence and not prohibition.”