UPSC Mains 2018 GS Paper 4 Q9: model answer
It is a State where prohibition is in force. You are recently appointed as the Superintendent of Police of a district notorious for illicit distillation of liquor. The illicit liquor leads to many deaths, reported and unreported, and causes a major problem for the district authorities. The approach till now had been to view it as a law and order problem and tackle it accordingly. Raids, arrests, police cases, criminal trials – all these had only limited impact. The problem remains as serious as ever. Your inspections show that the parts of the district where the distillation flourishes are economically, industrially and educationally backward. Agriculture is badly affected by poor irrigation facilities. Frequent clashes among communities gave boost to illicit distillation. No major initiatives had taken place in the past either from the government's side or from social organizations to improve the lot of the people. Which new approach will you adopt to bring the problem under control ?
What the question wants
As SP, suggest a new approach to control illicit distillation in a backward district where policing alone has failed.
How to structure it
Why policing failed, new approach.
- Diagnosis
- Multi-pronged approach
How to think it through
Root causes: poverty, poor irrigation, unemployment, community clashes, no development. Approach: development + enforcement + community. Examples: Bihar prohibition 2016 and hooch tragedies (Saran Dec 2022 ~ many dead); Gujarat; Tamil Nadu Kallakurichi 2024 (~65 deaths). Sustainable livelihoods: Bihar's 'Satat Jeevikoparjan Yojana' (2018) to rehabilitate families traditionally in liquor; SHGs (Jeevika). Convergence with DM: MGNREGA irrigation works, skill training, micro-credit; de-addiction centres; peace committees; women's groups (anti-arrack movement Andhra 1990s); informant network; target big suppliers not poor brewers; methanol supply chain control.
Model answer
Stakeholders
- Families dependent on distillation; consumers and victims of spurious liquor; women; communities in conflict; police; district administration.
Dilemmas
- Enforcement vs livelihood; punishment of the poor vs targeting the network.
Options
- More raids; ignore; combine targeted enforcement with livelihoods and community action.
Raids treated the still; nobody treated the soil in which it grew. The district needs a doctor as much as a policeman.
Diagnosis
- Poverty and unemployment: distillation is the most profitable work in a place with poor irrigation and no industry.
- Community clashes create networks of loyalty and fear that protect the trade.
- Policing hits the small brewer, while suppliers of raw material and transport stay untouched.
The new approach
- Targeted enforcement: go after the financiers, suppliers of methanol and jaggery, and transporters; seize assets under the law; protect informants.
- Prevent deaths: monitor sale of industrial methanol, as hooch tragedies such as Kallakurichi in 2024 are often caused by it.
- Livelihood alternatives, with the Collector: MGNREGA works for irrigation and farm ponds, dairy and goatery, food processing units, skilling linked to jobs. Bihar's Satat Jeevikoparjan Yojana offered families once dependent on liquor a fresh livelihood; I would propose something similar.
- Women as partners: SHGs and women's vigilance groups; the anti-arrack movement in Andhra in the 1990s showed their power.
- Community policing: peace committees across communities, sports and youth clubs, beat constables who know families by name.
- Health: de-addiction centres and counselling, run with the district hospital.
- Bridge the communities: joint development projects, such as a shared irrigation channel, give rival groups a reason to cooperate instead of compete.
- Clean house: act firmly on any policeman found protecting the trade; the public must see that the uniform is not for sale.
- Education: residential schools so that children are not drawn in.
- Measure results by fewer deaths and more alternative incomes, not just the number of raids.
The officer who reduces hooch deaths without filling the jails has done something more lasting than a record seizure.
Draw: A tree: roots labelled poverty, irrigation, clashes; trunk 'illicit liquor'; with axes labelled livelihoods, community, targeted policing.
Keywords, cases and data to drop in
illicit liquor, root causes, prohibition, targeted enforcement, methanol control, Kallakurichi 2024, livelihood alternatives, MGNREGA, Satat Jeevikoparjan Yojana, SHGs, anti-arrack movement, community policing, de-addiction, convergence.
Where most answers lose marks
- Proposing only harsher raids or lifting prohibition; the question asks for a new approach as an SP.
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Fresh examples from current affairs
Supreme Court: no prior approval under Section 17A needed to probe a bribe demand
In a judgment of 16 October 2026, a Supreme Court Bench of Justices S.V.N. Bhatti and N.V. Anjaria held that investigating a bribe demand by a public servant does not need prior approval under Section 17A of the Prevention of Corruption Act. Asking for a bribe, the court said, is not part of discharging official duties.
UPSC angle: Prelims: Sections 7, 7A, 17A and 19 of the PC Act. · Mains GS-II/GS-IV: honest officers versus accountability.
19 Oct 2026Learn the concept
Question text as printed in the official UPSC Civil Services (Main) question paper. The model answer is original Battle IAS work; use it to learn structure, not to memorise.
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