Dimapur, July 8 (MExN): The Nagaland Baptist Church Council (NBCC) today argued that the Nagaland prohibition Act is not a total failure and wanted that the government of Nagaland “strengthen its position by amending the loopholes section of the Act, but never yield to subtle pressures.” A lengthy elaboration from the Baptist churches’ apex was received here today. The statement traced the roots of its anti-liquor stance, the question of failure or ‘success’ and popular ideas about the impacts and consequences of the Act.
“The Act has been a partial failure not because it is a wrong Act, but because there is utter lack of political will on the part of the Government and lack of sincerity and co-operation on the part of the implementing agencies,” the church said. Denouncing the “inefficiency of the Government agencies and their lack of will to perform their duties” the NBCC said the law-makers themselves are responsible for making a mockery of the Act.”
“We would like to point out that many times the lawmakers become lawbreakers and the implementing agencies are made to be involved in making a mockery of the system. A past example is the incident near Kohima where the Scorpio vehicle of a sitting MLA involved in an accident, was allegedly carrying huge quantity of IMFL,” the NBCC explained.
On the claims of the government losing revenue, the NBCC said in countries ‘studies were performed to see if Government really gained or lost revenue because they allowed Alcohol and tobacco to be sold,’. “They were surprised by the fact that these Governments had lost much because it wanted some revenue,” the statement said.
“The Government of France in a study showed that the revenues earned by allowing alcoholic beverages were 53 billion francs. In contrast, 132 billion francs were spent in trying to pay for damages alcoholism produced on the country. Further the loss of productivity caused by alcoholism was estimated at 325 billion francs. That year the government of France lost more that 400 billion francs because it wanted to gain 53 billion francs in revenue.”
The NBCC explained the situation closer home. “Research in tobacco revenues has revealed that the Indian Government received Rs.1551 crores in a year. That same year the ICMR (Indian Council of Medical Research) estimated that the cost of treating cancer patients alone, arising from the abuse of tobacco was around rs.2365 crores annually. In addition Rs.3000 crores will be lost from disability and inefficiency caused by tobacco consumption. (The Hindustan times, Nov.’95). Apparently, governments all over the world are “penny wise and pound foolish”.
The NBCC felt convinced that other avenues of earning income have not been properly explored by the government in the past. The church’s estimate was put into perspective: “We estimate that in a day around 5 crores worth on consumer goods are sold in the state. If proper taxation of those goods are enforced the government would get almost 8% of this amount i.e. Rs.40 Lacs in a day. In one year the government would garner revenues close to Rs.125 crores just by proper taxation. Compared to this Rs.100 crores of revenue that is not added due to liquor prohibition to the state treasury is a very small figure.”
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