If the Government doesn't collect Rs. 2500 Crs. on Liquor taxes, who does?

Taxes collected from sales of liquor in other states of India, makes up, on an average, around 12% of the state's income. Topping the list is Karnataka, which makes 18% of its income through taxes collected on Alcohol, amounting to Rs. 4,060 Crores.  Gujarat, on the other end, makes a paltry Rs. 58 Crores!! 
Everyone knows alcohol is available in Gujarat, and the estimates of the amount that the Government loses because of Prohibition is Rs. 2,500 crores!  Around 50% of the price of a liquor bottle sold is comprised of a combination of taxes - except in Gujarat where the taxes are not paid at all since, technically, no booze is sold.  Pro-Prohibitionists argue that Gujarat doesn't need this income, we are doing fine without it.  But does such a short sighted answer consider the fact that Rs. 2,500 crores are going into fuelling corruption, underworld crime and everything that pro-prohibitionists consider unwanted at any cost?  So, please wake up and realize that prohibition is a failed experiment.  It is a self defeating system, as other countries around the world have also learnt time and time again. cont.... 

The reasons are simple - for those who drink alcohol do not consider it to be an immoral act and will continue to drink alcohol and the bootleggers will oblige, no matter how hard the Government tries to enforce prohibition.  If the Govt. bans rice, will everyone stop having it?  No, we'll have a black market for it - and because of the risk associated with procuring it, people may just consume it in excess when they do get it.  That, simply, is the current state in Gujarat - many drinkers "tank" up on liquor when they drink, and prohibition is responsible for creating such an unhealthy attitude towards liquor consumption, whereas everywhere else in the world it is seen as a drink of merriment. If the Government gets tougher, the alcohol consumption will not stop, but either the price of liquor in Gujarat will go up (since bootleggers will charge a premium for the extra effort in smuggling) or the quality of liquor will go down (since they will start making it here).  Self defeating, either way.  In the past, whenever the Government has used an iron hand to enforce prohibition, it has created dreaded underworld success stories such as Mudaliar in Maharashtra and Abdul Latif in Gujarat.  Latif started his career as a small time bootlegger and went on to monopolize the entire illicit liquor business in the State. In 1985, he aligned with notorious Pathan gangster Alamzeb of Mumbai to put down his rival Pappu Khan. His influence and power in the city of Ahmedabad increased so much that he was even elected as a corporator from five different municipal wards while still in jail (he was arrested in the year 1985 for the murder of a police officer) during the 1987 elections. Later, he linked up with the Dawood Ibrahim gang and killed Alamzeb. In January 1993, he received a consignment of 57 AK-56 rifles and 15,000 rounds of ammunition from Dawood Ibrahim for use during the post-Ayodhya riots. Abdul Latif, a mere bootlegger thus turned out to be a dangerous gangster-cum-terrorist-cum-politician in due course of time and became a major headache for the Gujarat Police, until he was nabbed at Dariyagunj in New Delhi on October 10, 1995, and was killed in a police encounter subsequently.

I hope the anti-prohibition population in Gujarat take this opportunity we have now, when the pro-prohibitionists are willing to have a dialogue with us for the very first time in several decades, to educated our ill-informed pro-prohibition compatriots.