A State Intoxicated: When Excise Becomes Governance

Telangana proudly projects itself as India's technology powerhouse, a magnet for global investment, innovation and rapid urban growth. Yet beneath this narrative of prosperity lies a far less celebrated distinction. According to the latest National Family Health Survey (NFHS-6, 2023-24), Telangana has the highest prevalence of alcohol consumption among India's major states. Nearly 43.9% of men aged 15 and above consume alcohol, more than twice the national average of 18.9%. In rural Telangana, almost one in every two men drinks. Even women's alcohol consumption, at 7.1%, is several times the national average.

These are not merely statistics about personal choices. They expose a deeper paradox. How has one of India's fastest-growing economies also become one of its most alcohol-dependent societies? The answer lies not only in culture or individual behaviour, but increasingly in governance.

Public debate has largely missed the point. Social media trivialises Telangana as a "drunk state," while political leaders celebrate record excise collections as evidence of fiscal success. Both responses are distractions. The real question is whether the state has quietly built a development model that profits from a habit that weakens the very society it seeks to develop.

The numbers reveal striking inequalities. Alcohol consumption is significantly higher in rural areas, where daily wage labourers, tenant farmers, construction workers and migrant workers confront uncertain livelihoods and chronic stress. For affluent professionals, drinking may remain an occasional leisure activity. For poorer households, it often becomes an expensive escape from hardship that deepens poverty instead of easing it.

The economic burden extends well beyond the bottle. Poor families first pay indirect taxes every time they purchase liquor. They pay again through medical expenses, lost wages, indebtedness, domestic violence and disrupted education for their children. It is a double tax on vulnerability, one collected by the market and the other by circumstance.

Culture alone cannot explain these trends. Telangana shares much of its history, language and social traditions with neighbouring Andhra Pradesh, yet Andhra reports substantially lower alcohol prevalence among men. If culture were the primary explanation, such stark differences would not exist. Policy choices matter.

Those choices reveal an uncomfortable contradiction. Liquor outlets are often easier to find than counselling centres. The contradiction was vividly exposed during the COVID-19 lockdown. After nearly 45 days of prohibition, the Telangana government reopened over 2,200 liquor shops on 6 May 2020, citing concerns over cross-border purchases and illicit liquor. Long queues stretching for hundreds of metres formed outside shops, with liquor worth an estimated ₹80-90 crore sold on the very first day. Every year, governments proudly announce ambitious excise revenue targets, but rarely set equally ambitious targets for reducing alcoholism or expanding rehabilitation. Every additional bottle sold strengthens the state's treasury while simultaneously enlarging its future public health burden. Few policy contradictions are as stark.

This dependence raises a constitutional question. Article 47 of the Constitution directs the State to improve public health and endeavour to prohibit intoxicating drinks injurious to health. While prohibition has repeatedly failed in India by encouraging illicit liquor and organised crime, relying on expanding alcohol sales as a stable source of public finance sits uneasily with this constitutional obligation. When fiscal planning increasingly depends on alcohol consumption, has the spirit of Article 47 quietly been reversed?

The social costs are devastating and often invisible. Alcohol-related harm rarely ends with the drinker. One person's addiction frequently becomes an entire family's crisis, eroding nutrition, household savings, school attendance, women's safety and children's mental well-being. Most women affected by alcoholism are not drinkers themselves. They bear the unpaid burden of caregiving while enduring financial insecurity, emotional trauma and, too often, domestic violence.

Yet the state's response remains disproportionately weak. De-addiction centres are scarce, mental health services remain overstretched, addiction screening is rarely integrated into primary healthcare, awareness campaigns are sporadic, surrogate advertising persists, age restrictions are unevenly enforced, and liquor outlets continue to proliferate across villages. The emphasis remains on regulating supply, not reducing demand or rebuilding lives.

Telangana does not need moral policing or blanket prohibition. It needs evidence-based governance. That means expanding rehabilitation services, integrating addiction treatment into public healthcare, regulating outlet density, strictly enforcing age restrictions, strengthening mental health support, creating alternative livelihoods in distressed rural regions, and measuring success not merely through excise receipts but through declining addiction and healthier communities.

The NFHS findings are not an indictment of Telangana's culture or of every individual who drinks. They are a warning that economic growth, however impressive, cannot conceal deep social vulnerabilities forever.

Telangana's greatest challenge is not that too many people drink. It is that the state has quietly become fiscally dependent on them continuing to do so. Development cannot ultimately be measured by record liquor revenues while families lose health, savings and dignity. The true test of governance is not how efficiently a government sells alcohol, but how effectively it reduces the need for it. A state aspiring to lead India cannot afford to become intoxicated by its own excise success.