The Hindu : Kerala News : Kerala bans all lotteries

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Wednesday, Jan 26, 2005

Kerala

Kerala

Kerala bans all lotteries

By Our Special Correspondent

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, JAN. 25. The Kerala Cabinet today decided to ban all lotteries in the State. The ban which comes into effect on Wednesday will cover Kerala State lotteries as well.

The decision follows the Supreme Court chiding the State Government on Monday for taking action against lotteries and asking the Chief Secretary, Babu Jacob, to apologise for not implementing earlier orders of the Court in a contempt of court case filed by the State of Meghalaya.

Briefing presspersons after a Cabinet meeting here, the Chief Minister, Oommen Chandy, said the State had no option other than allowing unbridled operation of lotteries in the State or banning them in the light of the Court directive.

Alternative employment

The Chief Minister said the State Lotteries Department staff, 47 gazetted officers and 406 non-gazetted officers, would be redeployed. The Finance Department will draw up a scheme for assisting disabled and poor sellers of its lottery to find alternative employment. The Kerala State lotteries had about 20,000 agents.

He said the Government would review the decision if the Supreme Court upheld its stand that the State was empowered to act against individual lotteries violating the Central Lotteries (Regulation) Act and ban online lotteries. The Government had engaged four eminent lawyers to argue the case before the court.

He said the draw of the State lotteries scheduled for today would take place. However, sale of new lottery tickets will be stopped from tomorrow. The State will suffer an annual loss of Rs.20 crores from the discontinuation of the draws.

The Government, he said, refrained from banning lotteries earlier because many people depend on earnings from their sale. Legally, the State lotteries alone could not be excluded from a ban.

So the only course for the Government was to ban all lotteries as sale of large numbers of lotteries in the State caused social problems (including suicides). States such as Tamil Nadu had introduced total ban on lotteries.

He said the scheme for assisting the lottery agents and sellers would be drawn up soon.

Achuthanandan's plea

The Leader of the Opposition, V.S. Achuthanandan, has asked the Government to immediately resume the State lottery.

In a statement here today, Mr. Achuthanandan termed the Government move to ban the State lotteries as a blow to the 3.5-lakh persons, including a large number of poor and physically challenged people, dependent on income from several related activities.

Started during the EMS Government in 1967, the State lottery had proved to be a source of income of many people over the years. The UDF Government cut their only source of income by one blow, he alleged.

Mr. Achuthanandan said the decision would also result in loss of around Rs. 140 crores annually to the exchequer.

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