Bihar to be a dry state from April 2016 as CM Nitish Kumar announces ban on sale of alcohol

Keeping one of his promises made before the Bihar Assembly elections, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has announced ban on sale of alcohol in the state.

The Bihar Chief Minister has announced the ban on sale of alcohol from April 1, 2016.

Defending the move to impose the ban after a five months gap, the JDU said that the government did not want a parallel alcohol economy to be launched, and hence kept the time in hand to work out on the logistics.

In the run up to the Bihar Assembly elections, the JDU leader had reached out to the women voters, promising that he would ban liquor in state if voted to power again.

Notably, soon after taking office, Excise and Prohibition Minister in Nitish Cabinet, Abdul Jalil Mastan had said that the Bihar government would soon take steps to impose a ban on liquor in the state.

"We will start work to impose a ban on liquor in Bihar. It would be visible in the next six months," he had said.

Mastan said the demand for prohibition in Bihar had been made by many. Women, mostly from Dalit and backward castes, had been at the forefront of protests against rising liquor consumption and demanded a ban on it.