In the last decade, Kerala has witnessed a permanent decline in alcohol sales, the Minister for Exclusions and Local Self -Government MB Rajesh informed the Assembly on Tuesday.
Mr Rajesh, who answered questions raised in the question, said that the sale of Indian foreign liqueur (IMFL) dropped from 241.78 Lakh cases in 2011–12 to 228.6 Lakh cases in 2024-25.
Official statistics suggest that the sale of IMFL was 224.34 cases of Lakhů in 2022-23 and 221.70 Lakh in 2023-24. Overall sale of alcohol in the combination of IMFL and beer has also decreased over the years. In 2015-16, the highest revenues were recorded in 355.95 lake cases. By 2024-25, this number dropped to 330.27 cases of Lakh, which meant a reduction in 25.73 lake cases.
According to Mr. Rajesh, the constant decline has been indicating a positive impact on the government’s efforts to reduce alcohol consumption over the last three years. He attributed the trend of success of the Vimukti mission, which played a key role in limiting alcohol consumption and drug abuse.
The Minister also pointed out that Kerala currently has 309 Bevco stores, while neighboring Tamil Nadu has nearly 3,000 liqueurs stores and Karnataka has almost 5,000 shops.
Mr. Rajesh added that the Clean Slate Operations initiated by the excise duty to face the drug proliferation, achieve immense success. In the first phase, 6,344 raids were carried out, resulting in a arrest of 962 people and registration 527 cases under the Act on Narcotic and Psychotropic substances (NDP). The number of raids in its second phase increased to 10,893. The operation revealed 1,459 cases of ABKARI and 996 NDPS cases. In addition, 398 joint raids were carried out in cooperation with the Keral Police.
Published – September 20, 2025 17:32 is
