Toddy Tragedy:Malappuram, India

The surprising thing to me about the Chittur area of Palkkad Dist is the profuse source of toddy resident either on the surface or on the subsurface there. The Regulating f agenfcy designated for movement of toddy is the excise department. In fact they issue permit for moving toddy from Chitrtur any other part of the state.

What I am blank about is the source of toddy, the off take volume per day, number of trees that are harvested for toddy. In fact, there is a system of keeping a tab on the number of trees tapped and the book keeper is the excise department of the state.

Luckily, if investigated one would find a correlation between the off take and use in Chittur on the one hand and the number of trees designated for tapping toddy by the government agency. After all even the gods open their mind and eyes at the sight of wads of currency note.

In such a society, what about the mortals who work for the government. What is needed to investigate is the beeline of beneficiaries out of the made toddy in the district.

After all the government pays away Rs.65 lakhs per live lost. But the money comes from the exchequer just like the pay and salaries of the government employees.

The memory is absolutely short and until the next tragedy lands people involved will go about freely doing their ways of doing things.

In fact the made toddy saved the govt from the lottery scam.

The Minister in charge Gurudasan found a solace in the fact that TN has 6000 shops doing the business while Kerala has far fewer and statistically Kerala record is better than what TN has.Three cheers for the minister for this achievement.t