The extension of the term of Vallamreddy Lakshman Reddy, chairman of Madya Vimochana Prachara Committee (Committee to campaign against liquor consumption) by the Jagan Mohan Reddy government in Andhra Pradesh for a period of another one year has raised many eyebrows.
Soon after taking over as the chief minister in May 2019, Jagan announced that his government would implement total prohibition in the state in a phased manner by 2024 by making the boozers give up consumption of alcohol.
In October 2019, the state government constituted a committee known as ‘Madya Vimochana Prachara Committee’ headed by Lakshman Reddy for creating public awareness on the ill effects of alcohol consumption. The State-level committee.
The committee was expected to study the policies of prohibition implemented in other states and submit a report to the government, apart from launching a massive campaign against liquor consumption.
But in the last two years, the committee hardly has done any work and even if it had taken up a few awareness programmes, it has not yielded any result.
The committee was supposed to help the state government to set up de-addition centres in every district to check consumption of liquor, but it was not done.
The Jagan government has claimed to have reduced the number of retail liquor outlets and bars and increased the liquor prices abnormally. However, it only helped the state to increase its revenues, instead of bringing down consumption.
Though there is not much work for Madya Vimochana Prachara Committee to do in the last two years, the Jagan government gave extension of term for Lakshman Reddy for another one year. A government order to this effect was issued on Monday.
“It is nothing but a sheer waste of money. Why should the government extend the term of Lakshman Reddy when there is hardly anything to do for him?” an analyst asked.
