gandhinagar drinking would have got easier in gujarat but for the hooch tragedy a senior official told toi that the government had decided to allow any recognised private doctor or a government doctor working in a primary health centre phc or a community health centre chc to issue permit to anyone wanting to drink liquor on medical grounds this was among the various decisions taken three years back to relax the states prohibition policythe official said till 2006 the provision that only a civil surgeon of a civil hospital is allowed to give the liquor permit prevailed however in 2006 when sudhir mankad was chief secretary and kc kapoor was additional chief secretary home a crucial decision was taken to extend the powers to any registered medical practitioner which would have toned down prohibition to a considerable extent a government resolution gr was signed but never issuedapparently minister of state for home amit shah got a bit cautious fearing protests from the antiliquor activists the protests followed after government gave clear indications to considerably water down prohibition rules by issuing two separate grs the first one related to allowing permit to anyone who is ordinarily a resident of special economic zone sez yet another allowed giving group permits for national and international business conferencesseveral other decisions are also likely to be dropped one of them was to allow permits to be issued by a hotel manager of a threestar hotel and above to anyone who is not a resident of gujarat on production of proof the other decision was to bring down the excise chargeable on liquor to a level that the drink becomes affordable to the ordinary man and finally there was a proposal to allow lifetime permits to anyone who is 60 plusliquor law watered down 2005 firsttime violators to be punished by making them do social service 2006 anyone residing in a special economic zone can get a drinking permit by paying rs 500 as fee 2006 group permits allowed to national and international business conferences held in gujarat at a fee of rs 5000from the official files a cautious and limited relaxation of prohibition for promoting tourism and improving the prospects of important capital and talent from outside the state stated the state public finance reforms committee report of december 2000 headed by top economist manu shroff which wanted government to substantially relax the procedure for liquor permit to improve the revenues the blueprint for infrastructure in gujarat big2020 said lifting of liquor prohibition was an ideal scenario to develop tourism one of the important factors for tourism is the availability of liquor as most international tourist destinations all over the world are competing for attracting new tourists and increasing tourism revenues the easy availability of good food and drinks has become a prerequisite