Patna: India’s Bihar state is constructing warehouses to safely store confiscated liquor, apparently alarmed by reports that ‘rats’ were responsible for the disappearance of banned beverages from police storage rooms.

The government headed by chief minister Nitish Kumar has imposed prohibition in the state.

As per the report, the state government plans to construct at least 47 such warehouses in different places across the state to store seized liquor bottles. Of these, four will be constructed in Patna — the capital city of Bihar.

Once the warehouses are constructed, any seized liquor bottles will taken there and safely preserved until the court orders their destruction.

These warehouses will be constructed by the Bihar Police Building Construction Corporation, a state government undertaking assigned with the responsibility to construct police stations, departmental offices and residential buildings.

The development comes after unassuming rats were blamed for “partying” on confiscated liquor, stored in police storerooms, after the liquor prohibition in Bihar.

The accusation was made by none other than the Bihar police during a meeting held in Patna in May this year to review status of confiscated liquor stored in police stations.

Patna’s senior superintendent of police Manu Maharaj was stunned when told that almost all confiscated liquor had been guzzled down by rats.

Upon inquiring how this could happen, he was told the rats had been gnawing at the caps of liquor bottles and drinking the contents!

The development prompted authorities to order an investigation into the disappearance of huge amounts of liquor.

As per an official report, authorities seized around 900,000 litres of liquor in the past 13 months since the total prohibition was enforced in the state in April last year.

That amount included 567,857 litres of foreign liquor and 310,492 litres of homemade drinks.

Subsequently, the authorities launched a drive to destroy the seized liquor by crushing it with steamrollers.

So far, authorities have destroyed around 200,000 litres of liquor in Bihar in the past two months.

The state enforced total prohibition in April last year.

“Our drive against alcoholism will continue unabated as the prohibition has helped the state significantly,” Bihar chief minister Kumar said on Wednesday.

He said the government’s ultimate aim was to impose a total ban on the use of all intoxicants.

“From total prohibition, we are now moving towards an addiction-free Bihar,” declared the chief minister.