Chequered history of liquor bans in India: MP joins the prohibition trend

Madhya Pradesh is the latest state to partially or fully ban alcohol sales in its territory. However, the history of prohibition and its implementation has been inconsistent, with the exception of Gujarat and, for the past nine years, Bihar. 

In Haryana, the ban on alcohol sales lasted for 32 months from July 1996 before being lifted by the same coalition — the Bansi Lal-led Haryana Vikas Party-BJP — that had initially imposed it. In Andhra Pradesh, prohibition was enforced for just under 26 months from January 16, 1995, by Chief Minister N T Rama Rao, only to be revoked by his son-in-law, N Chandrababu Naidu.  However, the ban on arrack, imposed by the K Vijaya Bhaskar Reddy government in 1993, is still in force.

  The Nitish Kumar government in Bihar banned the sale and consumption of alcohol on April 1, 2016. According to Jan Suraaj Party chief Prashant Kishor, the ban has led to an annual revenue loss of ₹20,000 crore, which he argues could have been used to overhaul the state’s education system. Mizoram imposed prohibition in 1997, lifted it in 2014, and reinstated it in 2019. However, in 2022, the state permitted the sale of wine made from locally sourced produce.

  Nagaland has been a dry state since 1989, though bootlegging is rampant. Meanwhile, alcohol sales are banned in certain parts of Manipur. In Uttarakhand, the sale and consumption of liquor are prohibited in pilgrimage towns and cities.