Supreme Court’s decision of banning alcohol on the highways doesn’t make much sense and is quite harmful. Here’s why

The recent execution of the Supreme Court’s judgement on putting a ban on alcohol sales within 500 metres of national and state highways has been made effective since April 1.

However, at this point, the people who are at stake belong to the business of hospitality. In most cities across India, there are star hotels on the highways, strategically located for better connectivity and luxury of space. In the metro cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai and other cities like Chandigarh, Jaipur and Lucknow invite a lot of tourists both domestic and foreign because of their hospitality infrastructure. Most hotels lined up on the highways have a bar to make sure the guests are taken care of. While the argument of whether alcohol is the a decent way to enjoyment is a different argument, but the fact that can’t be denied is alcohol helps the economy of the state to profit way better than other luxury, thanks to high excise duty.

Even if that isn’t enough to back up the logic on importance of alcohol, what’s far more serious is loss of jobs. About one million people would be chucked out from their jobs. In a country where engineering graduates line up for Grade 4 rank jobs in the government, such is the scarcity of openings; getting fired from jobs for a court order is abominable.

While the government should have enforced better vigilance and made stricter punishments to curb on drunken driving, this verdict is more like uprooting a whole tree because one branch of it was interfering with the electrical wires.

Serial entrepreneur and a renowned name in the hospitality industry, Priyank Sukhija, recently mentioned on a Facebook post, “Last month had to painfully say goodbye to 85 staff members because of the sealing of rooftops in CP which the NDMC has no consideration for ... ruining the most epic hub in the country ! This month it would be more than 100 after the 500 metre ban.”

Even Amitabh Kant, CEO of NITI Aayog is equally vocal about the crisis. In one of his recent tweets, Kant wrote,” TOURISM creates jobs. Why kill it? SC's highway liquor ban verdict may hit one million jobs.”