Look Who is saying this and What?

Gujarat Government’s Revenue Minister and a reportedly confidante

of Mr. Narendra Modi freely talks about ‘Potli’

and how to squeeze your Impact Fee

Bilkul News, Ahmedabad, Feb 27: Mahatma Gandhi’s Gujarat is a dry state, but State Revenue Minister Anandiben Patel, known to be close to Chief Minister Narendra Modi, seems to know the rates of even country liquor that flows easy in the State.

At a function in Ahmedabad’s labour-dominated Bapunagar area on Monday evening, where she inaugurated an MLA office, she asked the audience, “You must be drinking potli (small polythene bags containing country liquor) everyday, does it cost Rs 20 per bag? How many of them you consume everyday?”

(File photo of Anandiben Patel at an inauguration ceremony …

such leaders are leading Gujarat!)

And a few from the crowd comprising mostly labourers shouted, “paanch potli” (five bags). The senior Cabinet minister responded, “So you waste Rs 100 a day, that means Rs 3,000 a month and Rs 36,000 a year. But still you must be getting sleepless nights for the fear that the (Ahmedabad Municipal) Corporation officials will demolish your illegal construction.” The Hindu is in possession of the video of the minister’s function.

it goes without explanation that when the esteemed minister is asking the crowd how many ‘potlis’ do they consuem everyday, she is very much aware about the fact that liquor is available in Guajarat and nto only that but she is also aware of the type of it and the slang used for it.

She exhorted the audience to pay Rs 2,000 impact fees and get their illegal construction regularised. Gujarat Government has imposed various rates of, what it calls, impact fees on those who wish to get their illegal construction legalised.

Patel went a step further to tell the gathering, “No minister will advise you this but I am doing so. Even if you have 10 metres of illegal construction, show just two metres on paper, afterall it is self-assessment. In any case, we don’t have enough staff to come and check if what you have furnished is correct or false.”

She then told the crowd that it was in their interest to pay up the impact fees, whatever amount it may be.

It may be recalled that the Gujarat Government had introduced a bill proposing capital punishment or life imprisonment for (lattha) hooch manufacturing and peddling in the aftermath of a hooch tragedy in Ahmedabad city in 2009 that left over 140 people dead.

But it is public knowledge that country liquor flows easily throughout Gujarat and is consumed mostly by labourers, who cannot afford illicit Indian-made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) that is also known to be available in the state.