Revision summary
Raids failed because the belt is poor, dry and feud-ridden. A new SP should not unofficially legalise poison and should not only hit harder. The approach is mapped health data, strikes on methanol supply, livelihood and irrigation with the Collector, de-addiction, and impartial policing. Police integrity is part of the cure; protection money is part of the disease. Success is fewer deaths, not more cases.
Model answer
Copper italics in this answer — like this — are the key facts. Each one is unpacked in the Facts & figures rail.
Introduction
Illicit liquor in this district is a public-health massacre wearing a law-and-order mask. Raids alone have already been tried. The new approach must dry the economic swamp, not only fill the lock-up.
Body
Stakeholders
- Drinkers, their families, and people who die from methanol and other poisons.
- Poor distillers, including women who may have no other cash.
- Communities in clash, who use liquor money and liquor gangs as muscle.
- Police, excise, health, agriculture and panchayat officers.
- Honest dry-law supporters and those who want a quiet bribe economy to continue.
Ethical issues and values
- Sanctity of life: unreported deaths are still deaths.
- Justice: punishing only the small cooker while the solvent supply lives is theatre.
- Empathy: a dry law that ignores hunger will be broken every night.
- Impartiality: raids that visit only one community will feed the next clash.
- Integrity: police who tax the still cannot lead a new approach.
Why the old approach failed
- Distillation here is livelihood, irrigation failure, and a feud economy, not only a hobby of crime.
- Cases without conviction, and convictions without an alternative wage, recycle the same families.
- Fear without services pushes the still further into the forest and the death rate stays.
Options
- Option 1: Harsher raids only.
- Merit: some fear.
- Demerit: already failed; invites fake encounters and communal targeting.
- Option 2: Ignore prohibition and unofficially "regulate" the stills.
- Merit: less police theatre.
- Demerit: you become a partner in poison and you break the law you swore to.
- Option 3: A whole-of-district plan: enforcement on supply of poison, livelihood and irrigation, health, and peace work.
- Merit: matches the causes named in the stem.
- Demerit: slower, needs other departments; still the right course.
Action: the new approach
- Map deaths, stills, solvent routes and community fault-lines with health data, not only FIR counts. Publish what can be published so the problem is not a police secret.
- Split the crime: hunt methanol and organised supply with excise and financial intelligence; treat the hungry small cooker as a person who needs an exit, not only a boot.
- Clean the force: rotate compromised posts, use independent raids, and invite complaints against protection money.
- Sit with the Collector, agriculture, rural development and women-and-child officers: irrigation repair, MGNREGA and skill work in the belt, so the still is not the only wage.
- De-addiction and emergency medicine: primary health centres stocked for poisoning, an ambulance that actually moves, and counselling that does not wait for a fatal batch.
- Community peace: liquor often funds feud. Use credible local peace committees, equal enforcement, and keep festivals from becoming revenge markets.
- Women's groups and youth clubs as monitors, not as unpaid spies of one caste.
- Schools and adult literacy so the next cohort is not trapped in the same cash-from-poison story.
- Ask the State, with evidence, whether prohibition without livelihood is producing methanol death; policy change is the legislature's, but the SP may not fake success.
- Measure success as fewer deaths and fewer hospitalised children, not as a taller pile of seized matkas.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD DEATH[Illicit liquor deaths] --> OLD[Raids only] OLD --> FAIL[Problem unchanged] DEATH --> NEW[Supply plus livelihood plus health] NEW --> MAP[Map poison and poverty] NEW --> EXIT[Irrigation jobs de-addiction] NEW --> CLEAN[Clean police and equal raids]
Conclusion
Keep the law, but stop pretending the still is only a lathi problem. Cut poison supply, exit poor distillers into wages and water, treat the dying, and police both communities without a protection racket.
Quick related
Students also ask
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Case study. A big corporate house is engaged in manufacturing industrial chemicals on a large scale. It proposes to set up an additional unit. Many states rejected its proposal due to its detrimental effect on the environment. But one state government acceded to the request and permitted the unit close to a city, brushing aside all opposition. The unit was set up 10 years ago and was in full swing till recently. The pollution caused by the industrial effluents was affecting the land, water, and crops in the area. It was also causing serious health problems to human beings and animals. This gave rise to a series of agitations demanding the closure of the plant. In a recent agitation, thousands of people took part, creating a law and order problem necessitating stern police action. Following the public outcry, the State government ordered the closure of the factory. The closure of the factory resulted in the unemployment of not only those workers who were engaged in the factory but also those who were working in the ancillary units. It also very badly affected those industries which depended on the chemicals manufactured by it. As a senior officer entrusted with the responsibility of handling these issues, how are you going to address it? (250 words).
Next question on this syllabus topic (2018 · Q10). View answer →
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Is this the SP taking over development work?
The SP convenes and secures. Irrigation and jobs remain the Collector and line departments. Without them the police only harvest the poor.
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Should the SP publicly oppose prohibition?
The SP may report evidence of harm to government. Open campaigning against a State law is not the uniform's job.
Same topic · past papers
UPSC has asked this before
These previous-year questions sit on the same topic. Open one to practise the earlier ask.
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2024 · Q1(b) · GS IV · 10 marks
"Ethics encompasses several key dimensions that are crucial in guiding individuals and organizations towards morally responsible behaviour." Explain the key dimensions of ethics that influence human actions. Discuss how these dimensions shape ethical decision-making in the professional context. -
2021 · Q7 · GS IV · 20 marks
Case study. Sunil is a young civil servant and has a reputation for his competence, integrity, dedication, and relentless pursuit of difficult and onerous jobs. Considering his profile, he was picked up by his bosses to handle a very challenging and sensitive assignment. He was posted in a tribal-dominated district notorious for illegal sand mining. Excavating sand from river belts and transporting it through trucks and selling them in the black market was rampant. This illegal sand mining mafia was operating with the support of local functionaries and tribal musclemen who in turn were bribing selected poor tribals and had kept the tribals under fear and intimidation. Sunil being a sharp and energetic officer immediately grasped the ground realities and the modus operandi followed by the mafia through their devious and dubious mechanism. On making inquiries, he gathered that some of their own office employees are in hand and glove with them and have developed close unholy nexus. Sunil initiated stringent action against them and started conducting raids on their illegal operations of the movement of trucks filled with sand. The mafia got rattled as not many officers in the past had taken such steps against the mafia. Some of the office employees who were allegedly close to mafia informed them that the officer is determined to clean up the mafia's illegal sand mining operations in that the district and may cause them irreparable damage. The mafia turned hostile and launched a counter-offensive. The tribal musclemen and mafia started threatening him with dire consequences. His family (wife and old mother) were stalked and were under virtual surveillance and thus causing mental torture, agony, and stress to all of them. The matter assumed serious proportions when a muscleman came to his office and threatened him to stop raids, etc., otherwise, his fate will not be different than some of his predecessors (ten years back one officer was killed by the mafia). - Identify the different options available to Sunil in attending to this situation. - Critically evaluate each of the options listed by you. - Which of the above, do you think, would be the most appropriate for Sunil to adopt and why?
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