MANGALDAI, Jan 19 - Janaki Devi (name changed), a widow in her 30s along with two children, is a resident of Jaljali village, some 12 kilometres from here, is quite familiar among the villagers but for all the wrong reasons.
Her name is not only familiar among the villagers but also among local excise and police officials. She has been engaged in the illicit distilled (ID) country liquor trade for the last several years. After the sudden demise of her husband, the poor woman strived for livelihood with her two small children. She worked as a daily wage earner earlier. However, as her children started growing, the day-to-day need also increased. She was looking for more earnings when someone in the ID country liquor trade took the opportunity to motivate her to this illegal trade as an easy and lucrative means of livelihood. Initially she hesitated but later she got herself engaged in the trade.
At first, she found the trade very profitable. However, as days passed by she found that whatever she earned was taken away by either a section of corrupt excise officials or police officials. And whenever she refused, she was harassed or detained for long. Gradually, she also became a victim of hatred and negligence of the villagers. �I realised that I was not doing good for the society and also not earning much more than I had earned earlier. Very often I thought of giving up this profession and start other honest means of livelihood but I failed to get support from anyone else so that I could come out of this evil practice,� opined the ill-fated widow.
But things seemed to start changing for Janaki and her children ever since she heard an appeal from Deputy Commissioner, Darrang, Ashok Kumar Barman, in a local public meeting to shun the wrong path of illicit country liquor trading and shift to any other honest profession.
She somehow expressed her willingness to give up the illegal business and
start a new life in weaving in front of the Deputy Commissioner, who responded quickly by donating a set of loom and yarn. On Wednesday, he personally visited the residence of the widow and handed over all the necessary tools and raw materials of weaving.
�This is not only one single story of Janaki Devi, there are thousands of other Janakis in the State who knowingly or unknowingly carry out this illegal trade thereby not only damaging their families but also spoiling the society just like slow poison which has become even more dangerous than the insurgency problem of the State,� reiterated Deputy Commissioner, Barman. This is high time that the government comes forward with a pragmatic solution to this deep-rooted problem before it becomes too late.
