Initiative taken to free tea gardens from illicit liquor

Hailakandi, Jan. 15: An initiative has been taken in two tea gardens of Assam’s Hailakandi district in Barak Valley to make it free of illicit liquor and wipe out the menace of alcoholism. Illicit liquor has been completely wiped out from Serishpore tea garden and a pledge was taken by the garden workers, and distillers and sellers of illicit liquor at Koyah tea garden to follow a similar steps.
“The silent movement that is brewing will soon spread to the remaining 15 tea gardens in Hailakandi district and hopefully to all tea gardens in the Brahmaputra and Barak Valleys as a whole,” Superintendent of District Excise Department M Amarendra Nath said today.
After marathon discussions and persuasion, the garden workers, and distillers and sellers of illicit liquor vowed to follow the footsteps of their Serishpore tea garden counterparts by wiping out the menace of alcoholism from their garden as well, he said.
“It was by no means an easy task to convince them that illicit alcohol is adversely impacting their health and eating into their hard earned money,” Nath said.
“We have had to make them understand that they have to get away from the drinking habit to live a long, healthy life and to sustain their income flow as long absenteeism from work due to protracted illness affects their economic condition due to drastic cut in their weekly wages,” he said.
Nath said his team also tried to prevail upon the distillers and sellers of illicit alcohol to switch over to other vocations to eke out their livelihoods.
“We tried to drive home the point that they have been doing great harm to their community and adding to their cup of woes by pushing them to penury and to the jaws of death. We urged them to switch over to fruitful and productive vocations for the sake of the community,” he added.
The senior excise official said the awareness meet focused on weaning away the garden teenagers from the habit of drinking.
“Most of the school drop-outs who are in their teens, just waste away their time with some hitting the bottle out of sheer frustration,” Nath said.
Parents and the elderly have been asked to take lead in prevailing over the youth to shun the practice of alcoholism and to send them to schools once again to continue with their studies.
Nath said the workers, distillers and sellers would meet again after a fortnight to review the action plans initiated to stop illicit liquor.
He also exuded optimism that Koyah would soon become an illicit liquor-free estate like Serishpore.