PMK president Anbumani Ramadoss on Friday said the recent announcement by Minister for Prohibition and Excise S. Muthusamy that Tasmac will start selling liquor in 90-ml tetra packs will only serve to increase liquor sales.
In a statement, he said he had wrongly hoped that Mr. Muthusamy, who was an experienced Minister, would take Tamil Nadu towards prohibition. “He has held the position of a Health Minister for a full five years. And has also been a Transport Minister and started a number of educational institutions for the welfare of transport employees. However, just like Mr. Senthilbalaji introduced the automatic liquor vending machines, Mr. Muthusamy is also trying to introduce 90-ml sachets,” he said.
He recalled that Tamil Nadu had to rollback the sale of cheap 100-ml sachets after it was introduced in the State in 1989 and 2002, he said. “If 90-ml sachets are introduced now, history will repeat itself. The State government must not give way to such a situation and this idea should be given up on immediately. The sachets are apparently going to be sold for as low as ₹70. Further, minors and students might mistake the liquor tetra packs for other beverages, such as milk shakes and other juices, that are similarly packaged. Adults will not be able to check its proliferation among kids and students,” Dr. Anbumani said.
He further rejected Mr. Muthusamy’s reasoning that the sachets could be a solution to stop the mixing of toxic substances in bottled liquor. “Instead, shutting down liquor sales is the solution,” he added.
