Kerala government weighs political risk of reducing dry days in liquor policy for 2025-26 fiscal
The Hindu
Kerala's LDF government navigates political risks in finalizing liquor policy for 2025-26 fiscal year, balancing industry demands and social sensitivities.
The Left Democratic Front (LDF) government in Kerala appears to have walked a tightrope between the hospitality industry’s imperatives and the political risk of dismantling Church and Muslim social organisations-backed temperance shibboleths such as the first-of-the-month dry days while finalising Kerala’s liquor policy for the 2025-26 fiscal year.
Recognising that liquor policy is a politically and socially sensitive topic often characterised by convulsive pro-prohibition movements in Kerala, the government decided on Wednesday (April 9, 2025) against reducing the number of dry days in the State this financial year.
Top officials told The Hindu that intelligence reports suggesting that bar and hotel owners’ associations were raising funds from their members for a more liberal liquor policy also informed the government’s decision to pre-empt a politically disadvantageous corruption controversy over the slashing of dry days in the run-up to the local body elections in 2025.
Moreover, officials said the government saw no slump in liquor sales despite Kerala’s relatively high number of dry days.
However, limiting the hoarding of liquor for illicit retail on dry days and the possibility of spurious liquor entering the black market remained a grave Excise enforcement challenge.
The government also appeared keen to not provoke Church and Muslim social organisations-backed anti-liquor policy temperance movements ahead of the Assembly elections in 2026.
However, the government has attempted to balance the demands of the tourism industry by allowing four- and five-star hotels to serve liquor at events, including meetings, conferences, and exhibitions.
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