AIZAWL:
The crackdown on Mizoram-made wines by the state excise and narcotics department has triggered angry reactions in the state, with netizens across the state decrying the government’s action on social media platforms.
While people involved in the trade have accused the Mizoram government of “waging war” on the state-owned horticulture products, the authorities conducting the raids, have said that the crackdown was against Korean wines being sold freely.
Joining the furore, the state’s lone Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislator Buddha Dhan Chakma said that he could not understand the Mizoram government’s policy on liquor prohibition as the same wine, which was seized, had been served to a visiting Union minister.
“Union Minister of state for health, Bharati Pravin Pawar, during her recent visit to the state, was given a bottle of wine processed in Champhai, at a program organised by the state health and family welfare,” Chakma said, in a comment on post in a popular social networking website.
The excise officials, on May 27, conducted raids on departmental stores in Millennium Centre, Aizawl’s biggest shopping malls and hotels, seizing huge quantities of wines, imported and locally made.
Meanwhile, a senior state excise and narcotic department official said that the raids were conducted following reports of Korean wines being sold freely.
“We had no choice but to seize wines made in Mizoram as the state government was yet to make rules to legalise the wines made in the state,” the official said, adding that wine rules, under the Mizoram Liquor Prohibition Act, 2019, was yet to be made.
The grape wines produced in the state were manufactured at two wineries in Champhai town and Hnahlan village of Northeastern Champhai district.
Since 2003-04, close to 800 families in the Hnahlan and Champhai areas of eastern Mizoram have been planting Bangalore Blue varieties of grapes under the National Technology Mission. Bangalore Blue can’t be consumed as fruits, but is good for making red port and sacramental wine.
Champhai Grape Growers society, on May 28, demanded that all the wine bottles, called Champwine, seized by the state excise and narcotics department, should be returned immediately and in full quantity to the owners of the shops from where they were seized.
The society also demanded that no seizure of wine made in Mizoram should be undertaken in future and let the shops freely sell the products while threatening that the farmers would start a stir if the government does not comply with their demands.
The society said there is currently a stock of two lakh litres of grape juice to be processed into wine.
Many feel that the Mizoram government is acting under pressure from the powerful churches and the Young Mizo Association, the most influential organisation in the state.
The churches in Mizoram fear that grapes with high alcohol content would serve as a substitute for hard drinks in the dry state, said a church leader on the condition of anonymity.
“When beer, which has lower alcohol content, can be a menace, imagine what grape wine with high alcohol content can do. The church’s stand is that all types of alcoholic drinks should be banned in Mizoram,” a church leader, on condition of anonymity, said.
Earlier, there was a proposal to allow making of wine from grapes with 5 percent alcohol content under the Mizoram Liquor Prohibition Rules, however, the drafting committee on January 24 this year, after deliberate discussion, proposed not to allow grape wines, as “wine can be abused just like hard drinks”.
In 2007, the Mizoram government had relaxed the Mizoram Liquor Total Prohibition Act, 1995, allowing the manufacturing of wine up to 14 per cent alcohol content.