Click to play videoAhmedabad: Tax collected from alcohol is one of the biggest components of state revenue for most Indian states. However in states like Gujarat and Kashmir, where alcohol is prohibited, it's the liquor mafia that is minting money.
Situation in Gujarat
In Gujarat liquor bottles are being crushed by the Gujarat Prohibition department, but the amount of alcohol bottles being crushed is just a small percentage of the alcohol, that has been sold and consumed for over 48 years in Gujarat.
Although its almost blasphemous to talk against prohibition in Gandhi's Gujarat, there is a group called Maltmarch that is trying, in its own way to drive home the point that prohibition does not work anywhere.
"Gujarat does not even earn 0.5 per cent of its tax through through alcohol sales and those taxes are going in the wrong hands," says Founder MaltMarch.org, Dinesh Hinduja.
Prohibition in Gujrat has only resulted in liquor money going to the mafia rather than to the state.
Situation in Jammu & Kashmir
While alcohol flows freely in Gujrat despite government prohibitions, in Jammu & Kashmir it's the militant outfits and society at large that have a strong aversion towards tipplers.
Kashmir being a Muslim-majority — where consuming liquor is considered to be a sin and is frowned upon — CNN-IBN went undercover to show people lining-up for their daily doze in a highly secured Srinagar shop.
"The culture of wine and promiscuity is the deliberate policy adopted by this puppet government," says Chairperson Dukhteran-e-Millat, Asiya Andrabi.
In spite of protests — liquor is flowing quite freely in Kashmir. In 2007 alone, the J & K Excise department sold 12 lakh bottles of Indian made foreign liquor and beer in the Valley.
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