The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Centre urged to take steps to introduce Prohibition

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jul 27, 2007
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Centre urged to take steps to introduce Prohibition

Special Correspondent

It will be difficult for the State alone to do so: Yediyurappa

B.S. Yediyurappa

BANGALORE: Deputy Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa on Thursday told the Legislative Assembly that introducing Prohibition was not an easy task and urged the Centre to take the initiative.

Responding to the demand by Congress members to introduce Prohibition in the State, he said it would be difficult for the State alone to do so. If Prohibition were to be introduced, it should be done throughout the country.

IML sales up

Mr. Yediyurappa, who holds the Finance and Excise portfolios, said the ban on the sale of arrack had been enforced from July 1 based on the demand from women’s self-help groups, religious leaders and social activists. The sale of Indian-made liquor (IML) had increased since arrack was banned, he said.

Earlier, during the debate on demands for grants for various departments, the former Deputy Chief Minister Siddaramaiah (Congress) said Prohibition had not been successful in Gujarat. Since the arrack ban, habitual drinkers had shifted to IML, sales of which had increased. Illicit arrack was being sold in many districts, and no measures were being taken to check this.

All the programmes launched by the Government remained on paper. The performance in the housing and agricultural sectors was dismal. Not one house or site had been distributed under the Ashraya scheme in urban areas.

Allocations to priority sectors had been reduced because of inadequate mobilisation of resources, he maintained.

Fiscal situation

He said the fiscal situation would deteriorate further if corrective steps were not taken now, he said and opposed auction of government land recovered from encroachers to mobilise resources.

There was discrimination in the allocation of funds and sanctioning of schools and colleges. Only the constituencies represented by Janata Dal (S) and Bharatiya Janata Party legislators had benefited from the government schemes. The discrimination in the allocation of funds would worsen regional imbalances, he said.

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