Mokokchung, 31 March (MTNews): The Nagaland government’s proposal to allow the tourism industry to sell liquor to foreigners, which is said to be allowed within the ambit of the Nagaland Liquor Total Prohibition Act, 1989 has attracted the ire of the Ao Baptist Arogo Mungdang (ABAM).
The Chief Minister of Nagaland, Neiphiu Rio in his budget speech at the first budget session of the 14th Nagaland Legislative Assembly presented the bid to sell liquor to foreign nationals as one of the key proposals for revenue generation to meet the increasing developmental needs of the state.
While ABAM appreciated the potential and opportunities offered by the tourism industry for the economic development of the state, the idea of permitting the sale of liquor albeit only to foreigners has not gone down very well with the influential church body.
“Any industry including Tourism that operates by profit mode and commercial standard needs critical assessment,” ABAM stated in a press release on Friday.
“In the true sense of the word, commercially oriented development does not liberate the people to reach the full potential or do justice to the poor and to entire God’s creation,” it maintained, while asking if tourism can be divorced from “the culture of liquor and its menaces.”
“ABAM today relentlessly holds on to the firm pathways of our undisputed Christian foreparents of Nagaland who fasted with tears and sacrificed their lives for this noble cause,” ABAM said of the NLTP Act.
ABAM also asked whether development or tourism can be pursued “without abetting the culture of drinking liquor in any manner” in Nagaland. “Is drinking liquor the only answer to introduce Tourism in Nagaland?” it asked.
Read Full Text Here: Legally permit to consume liquor in Nagaland to give a boost to tourism?
