- Setting a Wrong Trend: Subsidy is the financial support that government provides to business or economic sector. In this case, government is saying, ‘since producing alcohol from food grain is costlier than from molasses, we are offering the subsidy to alcohol manufacturers.’ Government is sharing financial burden of alcohol producers simply because some of them have very good connections inside the government. A subsidy on kerosene, cooking gas, chemical fertilizers, and fuel is understood but on ALCOHOL is totally unjustified. By offering such huge subsidy to alcohol manufacturers Government of Maharashtra is setting a wrong trend.
- Against Democracy: From where the subsidies come from? Obliviously, from the pocket of common man like us who follow the regulations and pay the taxes. Now, Government is shelling out our money for benefits of few individuals without even concern of its people.
- Alcohol and Jowar: In its GR, Maharashtra Government is saying that - Jowar is a major crop of Vidarbha and Marathwada region. Since area under jowar cultivation and per hectare jowar production has gone down in last few years, there is a lot of scope for improvement of production of this crop. Hence, the Government is encouraging jowar based alcohol production to enhance the production. But why can’t our government understand that for rise of the production, subsidy should be given for seeds, fertilizers, irrigation facilities and farmers and not to the alcohol manufacturers? (see the Government GR)
- Food vs Liquor: If we start manufacturing liquor from food-grains like jowar and bajara, the manufacturers will purchase tons of grains from market. Even they can purchase the food-grains by paying higher price because grain based alcohol has good market value. This will initiate food vs liquor war and will result in shortage of food-grains and rise in grain prices in the market. We recently saw this phenomenon of global food crises because of food vs fuel war in developing countries like USA.
- PDS and Liquor: In our country, major chunk of our population is depending on grains we distribute under Public Distribution System (PDS). And all us know, there is huge black marketing is going on in PDS system. Once we started large-scale manufacturing of food-grain based alcohol, the grain from PDS system will get diverted towards alcohol plant. Now, at least food grains of PDS system are available for poor people in black market at higher price but going forward it will be only available for them in sealed bottles in wine shops and bars.
- Suicides of Farmers: Government is justifying its decision in its GR by stating that because of these alcohol industries farmers will get better price for their crops like jowar and bajara. In turn, these good returns on production will reduce the farm suicides in Vidarbha and Marathwada region. This is totally meaningless argument. (see Government GR and news)
- According to government, the reason behind approval of this subsidy is to increase export of alcohol because food-grain based alcohol has more demand in European countries. On other hand, government is saying that the produced alcohol has to sell in Maharashtra state only. (see Government GR and news)
- Under this scheme, since the food-grain has to be purchased from the Maharashtra state and alcohol has to be sold within the Maharashtra state, this will cause severe food shortage and sudden increase in alcohol consumption and will cause lot of ill-social effects.
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