18/01/2016
Are Keralites the biggest boozers in India? Statistics over the past few years have pegged the state as the biggest consumer of alcohol in the country, with some data suggesting that the per capita liquor usage is double the national average. The Supreme Court, in its verdict upholding the government decision to close down all bars except those in five-star hotels, touched upon Kerala’s high liquor consumption.
But statistics, as former business professor Aaron Levenstein provocatively commented, are like a bikini. “What they reveal is interesting; but what they hide is vital.” While no one disputes that alcohol consumption is a major social issue in Kerala, the image of being India’s largest watering hole has probably got to do more with perceptions, rather than hard facts. And data too is at variance. For instance, the National Sample Survey Office’s 2011-12 data put Andhra Pradesh as the top liquor consumer across all types of alcohol, with its people guzzling down about 34.5 liters per year. Kerala lags far behind with just over 10 liters of use.
An often overlooked factor that perhaps twists statistics is Kerala’s ban on arrack starting 1996. Till then, the low-priced brew was the common man's drink. After the ban, arrack drinkers migrated to the so-called Indian Made Foreign Liquor, or IMFL. Interestingly, this gave rise to a new, low-priced product category within IMFL, and brands of cheaply priced liquor did brisk business in bars and retail outlets.
Comparing the IMFL consumption among states and stating that Kerala has the highest intake, therefore, does not show the real picture: while country liquor is freely sold in other states, it is "disguised" as low-priced IMFL in Kerala.
And then you have the ubiquitous long queues in front of retail liquor shops across the state. The serpentine lines of people patiently waiting for their bottle have been widely featured in national and international media, buttressing the image of Kerala being a tipplers’ paradise.
However, the long queues are the result of the government restricting the sale of liquor through shops run by the state-owned monopoly, the Kerala State Beverages Corp. The number of such outlets was around 400 before Chief Minister Oommen Chandy’s government launched its liquor policy, which aims to close down 10% of the outlets every year. Today, after the closure of bars, liquor is available only through these limited shops, creating large crowds at the counters to get their supplies. And of course, a good number of people in those queues are migrant labourers, who currently number more than two million in the state.
Despite such factors, the media celebrates the rise in liquor “consumption” by Keralites every year by looking at the Beverage Corp’s revenue gains. But detailed studies are required to see the impact of price increase and higher taxes on sales. Without such studies, it is unfair to brand Keralites as the biggest guzzlers of alcohol in India.
(Photo: Photographing Travis via Foter.com / CC BY)