Sudsar village 'virtually' 1st to demand booze ban

Jaipur: Residents of Rajsamand district's Kachabali were in the limelight after they voted for the closure of their village's lone liquor shop recently, but the distinction of being the first village in the state to use this unique referendum was supposed to go to Sudsar village in Bikaner.
The villagers in Sudsar had signed a memorandum in June, 2014, demanding to exercise their franchise to close a liquor shop in their area.However, the district administration has been sitting on the proposal for the past two years.
The villagers in Sudsar, some 75 km from Bikaner, had taken the first step by handing over a memorandum to the district administration with signatures of more than 2,700 of nearly 5,025 voters who were in favour of the local liquor shop's closure in June, 2014. This made it necessary for the district collector to organize voting under the Rajasthan Excise (Closure of Country Liquor Shop) Rules, 1975.
However, the district administration never went about organizing the process of referendum, despite alleged repeated reminders from the excise department.
Assistant commissioner, excise department Mahaveer Kharadi told TOI that the excise department got the villagers' affidavit from the sub-divisional magistrate in Bikaner's Dungargarh.
"We wrote to the district collector immediately to conduct the voting and sent the voting results so that the process of closure of liquor shop could be initiated. In December 2015 also, the district excise officer wrote to the district administration for the same, but we are yet to get any reply," said the officer.
One Jagdish Prasad from Sudsar had approached the Rajasthan High Court demanding closure of the liquor shop. The court in April 2014 asked the applicant to proceed under the Rajasthan Excise (Closure of Country Liquor Shop) Rules, 1975 and give a memorandum to the district administration.
The law giving people of a municipal ward or a village the power to close the shop by voting has been in existence for years, but for the first time, it was exercised in Kachabali village in Bhim tehsil of Rajsamand district. The referendum on Tuesday saw 67.11% voters saying they wanted no alcohol sale in the village.