Easier for outsiders to get liquor than locals in Gujarat

Read | Gujarat government acts tough, but road to prohibition in state replete with tougher challenges

The government had put out a new law through an ordinance ratified nearly a week before Christmas that entailed up to 10-year imprisonment for drinking and possession of alcohol.

Under this law, the first major case was made out in Vadodara, where 273 people were detained for allegedly drinking at a pre-wedding party at a farmhouse around midnight on December 22.

Even as the prohibition law gets tough with domicile Gujaratis, the state government has been easing it for outsiders – visitors from other states, tourists and foreigners – to promote tourism and business.

The last relaxation came in 2014, when the state was preparing to host the seventh edition of the Vibrant Gujarat Global Investors’ Summit and the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas here, when it allowed hotel managers to issue liquor permits to anyone, whether “a person has checked in the hotel or not” (sic). The government also launched issuance of online permits for the convenience of visitors. The health permit, under which locals could drink, was modified. The earlier one would address the permit seeker as “drunkard” (daarudiya in Gujarati and sharaabi in Hindi) was scrapped as many found it offensive.

Nine hotels were cleared for such permission in 2014. They included two hotels in Kutch, which was hosting the Rann Utsav, four in Ahmedabad and one in Jamnagar. Others were Taj’s Gateway hotel in Gir and Cambay Spa and resorts in Gandhinagar. The latter’s owner, former IAS officer Sanjay Gupta, went to jail the following year, for allegedly being involved in the Ahmedabad Metro rail scam.

In that year, 43 places were authorised to sell liquor in Gujarat, which is now up to 52 — many of them have got permits only a month ago.

Any outsider visiting Gujarat can buy liquor from the authorised liquor shops by showing his/her travel tickets and residence proof. This is the simplest way to get liquor for outsiders as of today. An outsider can get one liquor bottle or 750 ml in a week or 10 beer cans per week for a period of four weeks.

Liquor laws were first relaxed in the state in 2006, three years after the launch of the Vibrant Gujarat Summit, when the government, under the chief ministership of Narendra Modi, passed a notification, offering group liquor permits to “educational and commercial” enterprises for conducting conference and seminars in Gujarat. Since then, group permits are being given to consume alcohol – sometimes the number of the group seeking to drink crosses 3,500.

For domicile Gujaratis, the only way to get legal liquor is to get permit on health ground. For that too, the minimum age should be above 40. According to statistics obtained from the Prohibition and Excise department, Gandhinagar, till November 2016, more than 70,000 liqour permits were held valid.