942 Do people really gain or lose, if bars and liquor shops on highway are closed as per Supreme Court's Verdict?

Anyone who is seriously interested in the welfare of Citizens of India, should be happy with the Supreme Court's verdict that liquor shops and bars on Highways, and within 500 meters distance of Highways are to be shifted. This decision seems to be based on a strong logic that no driver can resist a temptation to booze, when liquor shops and bars are available on the vicinity. When drivers yield to inebriations, their vehicles will indulge in gyrations. The end result will be bloodbaths on Highways. It is not the families of the drivers alone who will fall on the roads, but also the families of the persons trampled by the chariots of death driven by drunkards. Of course, General Insurance Companies may be paying claims to the vehicle owners and the third party sufferers. But, money is not a substitute for lives, the value of which cannot be measured with pink notes. The Highway Bars and Liquor shops are used not only by the vehicle drivers plying on the highways, but also the nearby residents, business persons, industrialists, professionals, students, engineers, doctors, and who else not?

Media and the State Governments should have wholeheartedly supported the verdict of the Supreme Court. Of course, some concessions such as giving additional time of about three months, or waiting for the completion of the Excise Year/Financial Year, some minor adjustments may be sought and granted. But strangely, both the Media and the State Governments are trying to defend the proliferation of bars and liquorshops on highways, on some pretext or other. We shall see one such example, a TimesofIndia.com editorial.

Link to the TimesofIndia.com editorial dated 4.4.2017

Click here to go to http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/toi-editorials/costly-verdict-supreme-courts-highway-liquor-ban-is-proving-counterproductive/. We shall have one or two quotes from the report:--

"...Take cities such as Gurgaon and Chandigarh. The former has grown around highways. Most hotels, bars and restaurants are concentrated along these highways and pull in young professionals and foreign tourists. Following the Supreme Court order, at least 200 liquor licences in Gurgaon – including 150 bars and 15 high-end hotels – have been rendered ineffective. Similarly, in a small city like Chandigarh the apex court directive has forced at least 91 bars, pubs and restaurants to go dry.

Needless to say such closures will lead to enormous losses to business and tourism, which will translate into jobs lost as well as huge revenue losses for state governments which could have been spent on people’s welfare. The uncertainty of India’s business climate will deter investment from coming to India. And given the number of livelihoods at stake it’s more than likely that illegal liquor vends will proliferate along highways, leading to bigger risks to public safety. Even the man whose PIL led to the highway liquor ban – Chandigarh-based activist Harman Sidhu – has said he never wanted popular watering holes within city limits to shut down.

As always, measures to ramp up governance will work far better than radical decrees. Policing should improve on highways to tackle drunken driving. State governments should be directed to allocate more resources for this purpose. Only constant checking of drivers and punishment for offenders can deter those who drink and drive. Blanket bans and prohibition-like decrees, whether from judiciary or legislature, only make the problem worse. In this case they will injure the economy and cripple the tourism industry – which happens to be the sector that produces the most jobs per rupee invested. The apex court must reconsider its decision.

ybrao-a-donkey's views, not intended to be imposed on others:

There is an idiomatic phrase in Telugu language "bellam chuTTU IgallAgA", which approximately in English reads: "like flies around jaggery". This adage refers to flies swarming around jaggery गुड బెల్లం . Just as flies swarm around jaggery, hotels, young persons and foreign tourists swarm around highways. Readers may recall how Casinos on the beaches of Goa, have converted the beautiful joy-generating Arabian-Seaside Heaven into a gambling den, suitable for drunken brawls. Our Former Defence Minister of India Shri Manohar Parlikar, as Goa's CM, seem to encourage their flourishes.

Highways are intended for transportation of essential goods. Not for boozing

They are not intended for boozing binges. Extension of period for closure of highway bars and liquor shops, is a way of consoling fhem for loss of their business owing to abrupt closures, and shifting the shops. Besides, the aficionados and connoisseurs of liquors are simply not muggins to stop searching for boozes and drive their vehicles with lotus-petal-wide eyes. They will stop the vehicle on the Highways, go into lanes in search of bars and liquor shops, fill their barrel-bellies, and return to their vehicles self-coiling and self-winding, like ringworms.

Allowing proliferation of bars and wine-shops on and around highways indicate that there are Governmental failures. Some bureaucrats / politicians handling the tasks of governance might have been making quickbucks by granting licences.

Susceptible to further additions / deletions / modifications. और जोडनीय वस्तु हैं। ఇంకా వ్రాయాల్సినవి ఉన్నాయి.