CONRAD DIAS
Ranchi, Mar 15: The legal age to consume alcohol in Jharkhand is 21. However, many liquor shops and bars in Ranchi are providing alcohol to students who are under the age of 21. Moreover, many school students of class 12 from different schools buy alcohol from any liquor shops in the city without showing any ID.
A college student from Ranchi, who has requested not to reveal his identity, spoke to lagatar24.com and said that he and his friends often go to bars in the city and buy alcohol from the shop.
“My age is less than 21 and it is quite easy for me to purchase alcohol from any liquor shop as they never ask for any ID proof. Similarly, I have visited many bars in Ranchi from big to small and no one has ever stopped me. There have even been a few instances when I and my friends went to a bar in uniform and we were allowed to consume drinks,” the student said.
The Chief Minister had earlier said that the government has no plans to implement a liquor ban at the moment. Congress MLA Deepika Pandey Singh, while demanding prohibition, had earlier said that domestic violence and cases of harassment have increased due to consumption of alcohol.
The owner of a liquor shop said that we do not ask for any ID unless the person is a kid. “No liquor shop in Ranchi asks for age proof from its customers. We have hundreds of customers who buy alcohol from our shop and we cannot ask for ID from everyone. Moreover, we have to sell our stock so we don’t ask questions from our customers,” the shop owner said.
Many pubs and bars in Ranchi have a poster that clearly mentions that ‘consumption of alcohol and smoking under the age of 21 is strictly prohibited’. However, no one really follows it.
Apart from boys, even minor girls in the city have easy access to alcohol as there are many posh liquor shops in the city. “I stay in a girls’ hostel in Lalpur and we have many liquor shops around this place. When we buy alcohol, they don’t ask for any age proof from us. We just pay them and they give us booze,” said a student from BIT Lalpur.
However, many liquor shops and bar managers have denied this and said that they do not allow any minor to consume alcohol. “We allow our guests in the bar but we make sure that we do not serve alcohol to anyone who is below 21 years of age,” said the bar manager of Red Chillies bar.
The state government is planning to implement the e-product policy. The Chhattisgarh State Marketing Corporation Limited has provided several suggestions regarding the product revenue promotion. However, if the state government accepts this model and implements the liquor policy, then around 80% of the bars in the state will be on the verge of shutting down.
