Country has capacity to export liquor if allowed: Sindh Assembly told

Pakistan produces global quality of liquor with its three top distilleries and the country has the capacity to export beverage to the world if the government grants permission to this sector, Sindh Excise and Taxation Minister, Mukesh Kumar Chawla, told Sindh Assembly on Wednesday.
Giving replies to the queries of provincial legislators during the assembly session, which Speaker Nisar Khuhro chaired, the minister said the country's three best breweries were following the quality specifications to produce liquor. To a question he said that in line with the 1979 Ordinance of "Hudd", liquor could only be sold to non-Muslims. He said the government was issuing permits to non-Muslims to run their wine shops.
But, Pakistan People's Party's (PPP) minority lawmaker, Khursheed Saleem Khokhar, criticised the word non-Muslim, saying liquor sale should be banned for people of all religions and the discrimination in the name of creed should end. "Otherwise sale of liquor should be allowed openly like soft drinks are selling in shops," he suggested.
A PPP legislator, Anwar Khan Maher, said that liquor was prohibited in all religions, on which Chawla replied that according to the Hudd Ordinance, permits were being given to non-Muslim and suggested if the lawmakers indented to end the practice then they should amend the law.
He informed the lawmakers that the government granted license against Rs 5 million for one-year period for running a wine shop and the fee of renewal of the licence was Rs 0.3 million. PPP's lawmaker Khalid Kharal complained that in his area of 'Kamb.' a wine shop was being run despite no non-Muslims inhabited there. He said the members of Hindu community, who also visited the area to purchase liquor, were being harassed by police.
To his concerns, the minister bluntly replied that the government's job was to grant licenses for wine shops and not to sell liquor. He, however, told the house that the government had its plan to make Larkana a drug-free city and other parts of the province would gradually be included in the strategy.
Chawla said his department had initiated a number of programmes to eradicate the menace of drugs in the province. He said the excise police had been harnessed with the latest weaponry, which had been purchased from Pakistan Ordinance Factory at a cost of Rs 21 million. He said the police was being given training with the same arms at anti-narcotics force academy and rangers training centre. He said the inspectors of excise and taxation department were being provided with training at Commando Centre in Sakrand. He said the officials were also being given phase-wise training at judicial academy Karachi.
He said such steps had helped the department attain successes to clamp down on illegal drug businesses in the province. He said from July 2011 to January 2012, the department had registered some 197 cases and arrested 215 persons, besides seizing 114 kgs of heroin and 4022 kgs of hashish.
PPP's lawmaker and Public Accounts Committee's chairman, Jam Tamachi Unar asked the minister to let the house know whether there was any part of the province which could be called safe from drug peddlers. The minister replied that his constituency was a drug-free area of the province.