Very worrying trends have been reported recently from Himachal Pradesh that highly nutritious fruits are being diverted from direct consumption to the production of wine on a large scale. Such trends if left unchecked can easily spread to other parts of the country.

First a leading newspaper Dainik Jagran reported that apples as well as other highly nutritious fruits in the state will be diverted on a large scale for production of wine, and the existing processing facilities of a public sector unit will be made available to a private company for taking this new wine to different parts of the country. Then on May 1, another news appeared in another leading newspaper Navbharat Times that along with fruits, special Kangra Tea Leaves will be used to prepare tea wine with alcohol content of 12 percent (much higher than beer). A government science lab is being used to prepare this, and a private company has been contracted to sell this as tea wine on a large scale. The government will also be earning from this deal. 

It is very worrying that even such a staple drink as tea which is consumed by an overwhelming majority of people in the country is being imitated to prepare an alcoholic drink based on tea leaves with a high alcohol content, and at the same time fruits are being diverted for the production of this wine, at a time when children from poor families in this apple-producing state find it very difficult to eat apples.

 It is likely that soon there will be a drive by unlicensed shops to sell these new forms of liquor. The first signs of this can already be seen as some general merchants and fruit juice shops are seen selling fruit wine. What is even worse is that high alcohol content drink or liquor is being promoted for health benefits. 

This fraud has already been exposed in the context of red wine for its falsehood and deceit. This mis-propaganda was done under pressure from the liquor lobby. It is now well known that the completely false promotion of red wine as a healthy drink led to massive damage to health and a huge increase in liver disease as well as other serious health problems. The same tragedy will be repeated in India on an even larger scale when fruit wine and tea wine are promoted for their false health benefits while covering up the conspiracy of the liquor lobby in taking liquor to more and more people.

Hence this dangerous trend and the distorted thinking behind it should be checked as early as possible.