The lovely tale of Liquor
during Lockdown and before
At every stage, addiction is driven by one of the most powerful, mysterious, and
vital forces of human existence. What drives addiction is longing —
a longing not just of brain, belly, or loins but finally of the heart.
Cornelius Platinga
The use of alcohol in India for drinking purposes dates back to somewhere between 3000 and 2000 BC. An alcoholic beverage called Sura which was distilled from the rice was popular at that time in India for common men to unwind at the end of a stressful day. . Yet the first mention of Alcohol appears in Rig Veda (1700BC). It mentions intoxicants like soma and prahamana. Although the soma plant might not exist today, it was famous for delivering a euphoric high. It was also recorded in the Samhita, the medical compendium of Sushruta that he who drinks soma will not age and will be impervious to fire, poison, or weapon attack. The sweet juice of Soma was also said to help establish a connection with the gods. Such was the popularity of alcohol. Initially used for medicinal purposes, with time it evolved and became the beverage that brought life to social gatherings, and eventually consuming alcohol has become a habit for many.
With such a rich history of not just humans but also of the gods,
what is a worldwide pandemic to stop anybody from drinking?
. . .
According to a report released by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in 2018, an average Indian drinks approximately 5.7 liters of alcohol every year. In a population of casual and excessive drinkers, with the shutters of liquor stores down, it must have been extremely difficult for “certain” people to survive lockdown. In the first two phases of lockdown, the desperation had quadrupled prices of alcohol in the Grey Market of India. Also, According to Google Trends, online searches for “how to make alcohol at home” peaked in India during the fourth week of March, which was the same when the lockdown was announced. As a consequence, a few people died drinking home-brewed liquor. People committed suicide due to alcohol withdrawal syndrome. Owing to the worsening situation and to reboot the economy, some states decided to open licensed liquor stores in the third phase of the COVID-19 Pandemic lockdown in India. This decision was the worst best decision the state governments could take. The kilometer-long queues in front of liquor stores were evidence that a pandemic can turn your life upside down yet your relationship with alcohol cannot move an inch.
The love in the hearts of those who are addicted was explicit. We might have seen addiction, we might have witnessed desperation but what happened in the month of May was madness, not just in terms of the way people pounced but also in the way the government earned. According to a report by Hindustan Times, on the first day of the third phase of Lockdown, the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh recorded a sale of over Rs 100 Crore from liquor. On the second day of the reopening of Liquor stores, Karnataka reported sales of 197 crores in a single day which was the largest ever. Eventually, the prices of Liquor were hiked to 100% to discourage people from drinking.
. . .
There was a special corona fee that was imposed in Delhi by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. A 70% corona fee was imposed in Delhi, yet the sales did not drop. The entire situation was a disaster for the law enforcement officers, social distancing was easily abandoned and a basic code of conduct was happily violated. Despite the chaos created, the states continued to collect revenues. Home delivery of alcohol was allowed in Maharashtra and e-tokens were sold in Delhi.
Demand for liquor is inelastic which means that
the sale of alcohol is not much responsive to change in prices.
In general, since alcohol policy is a state subject in India, revenue from Liquor is a cash cow for state governments. In 2018 and 2019, four states collectively collected about 20,000 crores in taxes from the sale of liquor. As much as the state earns from the sale of Liquor it is undoubtedly, a threat to the Economy. Consumption of alcohol has dire health consequences. When a person consumes an alcoholic beverage, there is a rise in BAC because of which there is a gradual and progressive loss of driving ability because of an increase in reaction time, overconfidence, degraded muscle coordination, impaired concentration, and decreased auditory and visual acuity. This is known as drunken driving. (V. M. Anantha Eashwar, 2020) Drunken driving is the third biggest cause of road accidents and over speeding in India. Road accidents are not it; alcoholism causes sleep problems, heart, and liver issues. Also, it is not about an individual’s life, it ruins the lives of all people concerned.
Addiction also causes economic loss. In 2000, Vivek Benegal and his team assessed 113 patients admitted to a special de-addiction service for alcohol dependence. They found that
the average individual earned a mean of ₹1,661 but
spent ₹1,938 per month on alcohol, incurring high debt.
They also found that 95% did not work for about 14 days in a month. They concluded that it led to a loss of ₹13,823 per person per year in terms of foregone productivity. A more recent study, Health Impact and Economic Burden of Alcohol Consumption in India, led by Gaurav Jyani, concluded that alcohol-attributable deaths would lead to a loss of 258 million life-years between 2011 and 2050. The study placed the economic burden on the health system at $48.11 billion, and the societal burden (including health costs, productivity loss, and so on) at $1,867 billion. “This amounts to an average loss of 1.45% of the gross domestic product (GDP) per year to the Indian economy,” the study said. (Mint, 2020)
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Air India- A Saga of mismanagement

Sphurti Srivastava
2 mins read
Do you guys remember Air India? Do you know the one that was labeled as the ‘Palace in the sky’? The world's first all-jet airline? The one which excelled in providing customer service, which was quite evident from its logo of Maharaja? Well, do you also know that this same Air India is on the verge of shutting its operations? Shocking right? But sadly, it's true.
Air India has a debt burden of ₹ 60000 Crores. The Government has been following an extensive disinvestment policy but not a single buyer is willing to buy. The Government of India has infused a total of ₹ 30520 Crores from 2011 till December of 2019. The Government has left Air India to fend for itself by refusing to inject funds anymore amidst its privatization plans. Air India registered a massive loss of ₹ 8556 Crores from 2018 to 2019. The question you must ask yourself is how did Air India come to this state of affairs?
Well there are a large number of factors but as Jitendra Bhargava, author of “descent of Air India'', says there are two factors responsible for Air India's fate:
a) Competition from the private sector came early in the aviation industry as compared to other public sectors like banking
b) Appointment of an outsider as the Chairman of Air India instead of an insider.
Drawbacks of Air India include the lack of a strong leader who could take strong decisions. What followed was that Air India could not negotiate with labour unions and acceded to its demands and the result was that Air India had to reduce its services to cut down its cost which severely affected its competitive position in the market. But these aren’t the two factors which crashed Air India. The Atal Bihari Government wanted to privatize Air India and Indian Airlines and tasked Naresh Chandra Committee to study the options.
The UPA-I government, under the leadership of Dr. Manmohan Singh, was in favour of
the modernization of the fleet and rejected the Naresh Chandra Committee's report.
The Government acquired 111 aircraft at the expense of ₹ 70000 Crores. The idea was to fund the acquisitions through debt and repay through revenue generation. The plan didn’t work and was a disaster. In 2007 The Government decided to merge Air India and Indian Airlines to increase synergy. The result was exactly the opposite. Losses kept mounting. In 2002-03, the overall losses for Air India and Indian Airlines were ₹ 63 crore which then rose to nearly ₹ 7,000 crore in 2010-11. In a span of five years, the combined Air India-Indian Airlines entity piled up a debt of ₹ 20,000 crore. In 2011, the UPA-II government decided to pump in the equity of ₹ 48,212 crore for 20 years initiating in 2011-12 and ending in 2031-32 to stop Air India from bleeding.
. . .
Air India was expected to show positive earnings and a cash surplus from the financial year 2017 onwards. The opposite happened. Air India's inability to service the annual interest payments led to losses amounting to ₹ 52,000 crore this year. According to the CAG (Comptroller and Auditor General of India) report tabled in Parliament in March 2017, Air India incurred a loss of more than ₹ 671 crore by selling five Boeing 777-200 long-range aircraft to Etihad below the cost price.
Air India sold these five Boeings to Gulf carrier Etihad for USD 336.5 million, which comes to roughly USD 67.3 million per plane. According to CAG, the aircraft were sold at a price lower than the indicative market price of USD 86-92 million per aircraft obtained from two parties, M/s AVITAS and M/s ACCENT. The losses mount when one adds the interest paid on loans to procure these aircraft which stands at ₹ 324.6 crore. The losses kept mounting but Air India had to pay its employee’s salaries, insurance premiums, and all such expenses which kept on increasing losses. Air India also suffers from overstaffing. The company has about 210 employees per plane, Jet Airways has 119 and IndiGo requires just 80 per aircraft. It’s not that the company hasn’t tried to prune its staff size. But its voluntary retirement schemes, implemented in 2003, 2008, didn’t result in any significant reduction in the workforce.
Just imagine the extra expenditure Air India incurs every month which could have been avoided. It is said that Air India met such a terrible fate. Air India's case serves as a learning lesson for all public sector undertakings and warns that a poorly managed PSU will meet the same fate as Air India.