Delhi or Mumbai, as soon as evening dawns, number of people can be seen around the liquor shops. A phrase in India is very common that both medicine and alcohol are sold equally. In West Bengal, drug shops are more than liquor shops; every fifth or sixth shop in Goa is of liquor and medicine shops are less. In Uttar Pradesh, medicines and liquor is sold equally, in Punjab the consumption of liquor increases in the evening. A comprehensive government survey that covers all states and Union Territories has revealed serious drug and alcohol abuse with an estimated 5.7 crore persons requiring treatment for alcohol dependency. In about 100 million people in India, 16 crores are addicted to alcohol, that is, about 14.6 percent of the people drink alcohol. About 20 percent of the people in UP drink alcohol.
The numbers may well be higher, but the survey, which is based on a household survey of over 2 lakh households in 186 districts, presents a worrisome picture of drug and alcohol abuse that is taking a heavy toll of health and economic productivity of individuals. In this survey 4 lakh73thousand and 569 people were interacted.
For the first time, data on women users has also been collected. Data shows while alcohol use is higher among men at 27.3% as compared to women at 1.6%, it is reported among women in almost all states. Also, 6.4% of women users are dependent on alcohol.
More than half of the male population of Chhattisgarh, Tripura and Punjab are alcohol users. In absolute numbers, UP has the highest at 4.2 crore users, followed by 1.4 crore in West Bengal and 1.2 crore in MP. The survey found that of an estimated 16 crore alcohol consumers in the 10-75 years, as many as 19% of them were dependent on alcohol. This data was collected between December 2017 to October 2018.