Kerala - Kochi   

Social barriers to drinking crumbling

Unending: The long queue at a Kerala State Beverages Corporation outlet in Kochi.

KOCHI: Creating an all-time high and signalling the crumbling of social barriers to drinking, people in Kerala drank 13.32 crore litres of liquor during last financial year. This is apart from 58 lakh cases (one case is nine litres) of beer.

Each day Keralites drink more than Rs.10 crore worth of Indian-made foreign liquor (IMFL) and beer; toddy, hooch and liquor brought in from other places such as Mahe are extra. Each year, thousands of youths join the ranks of drinkers even as the mean age of first-time drinkers has been coming down over the years. Initiated through social drinking, thousands of women also turn to the bottle.

The Kerala State Beverages Corporation, the State monopoly of IMFL, sold liquor worth Rs.3,669 crore in 2007-08, up from the previous year’s Rs.3,143 crore — an increase of Rs.525 crore. N. Shanker Reddy, the corporation’s Managing Director, told The Hindu that 1.48 crore cases of liquor were sold last year, an increase of 12 per cent over the previous year. The consumption of beer — 58 lakh cases — rose by 17 per cent. The corporation’s contribution to the State’s revenue last year was Rs.2,913 crore, Mr. Reddy said.

According to Paul Karachira, secretary-general of the Kerala Catholic Bishops Council’s (KCBC) Commission on Temperance, almost one in every three people in Kerala (total population: 3.18 crore in 2001; males, 1.54 crore) drinks. He estimates that there are one crore drinkers in the State, of whom 15 lakh are addicts. He, however, said that one reason for the big jump in liquor consumption could be the heavy drinking by the lakhs of migrant workers from Bihar, Tamil Nadu and Orissa, who splurged the high wages they got on the bottle. In Angamaly, Chalakkudy and Perumbavur — three of the dozen major `drinking centres’ in the State — migrants employed in building construction make a sizable proportion of the drinkers.

Mr. Reddy said Ernakulam and Thrissur topped the districts in terms of drinking. And, roughly three-fourths of the drinkers in the State were daily wage workers (and they drank in the evening, after a day’s sweating). Rum, which gives better kick per peg, constitutes two-thirds of the corporation’s sale.

“The ongoing construction boom, which puts lots of money in the hands of the working class, is helping the spread of the drinking habit,” an anti-liquor campaigner, who refused to be named, said.

According to Fr. Karachira, who runs de-addiction centres and directs anti-liquor drives in the Ernakulam-Angamaly archdiocese, easy availability is the main reason for the widespread consumption of liquor in the State, which is one of the top drinking States in the country.

The corporation alone has 326 sales outlets across the States, apart from the hundreds of private bars, bar hotels and toddy shops. “The government is encouraging the spread of alcoholism,” accuses Fr. Karachira. “A major share of government’s as well as politicians’ revenue comes from the bottle.”

C.J. John, a Kochi psychiatrist, said that alcoholism was a major public health problem faced by Kerala. Alcohol-related mental and physical sicknesses were on the rise. “Keralites could be the largest users of anti-depression and anti-anxiety drugs in the country,” he said.

“One reason for this is mental health imbalance triggered by heavy use of alcohol.”

He said the moral pressure against the bottle was being crippled and that drinking was becoming more and more socially acceptable, sometimes desirable, habit. In the past, the home used to be a sacred place where the bottle was rarely allowed and many people hated to go home drunk.

Now, home drinking had become the norm, and a fallout of this was the dwindling of the mean age of first-time drinkers, he said. “Even 15-year-old boys start drinking beer at parties and functions at home.”

Dr. John recalled a foreign visitor’s comment that “Keralites do not really enjoy their drinks; they drink fast and they drink heavily.” Gulping was particularly harmful to heath, Dr. John said.

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