Patna: Twenty sniffer dogs will join Bihar police to assist them in preventing smuggling of liquor from outside the state.

The police headquarters has purchased 20 pups, all of a foreign breed (Labrador), and handed them over to Hyderabad-based Integrated Intelligence Training Academy (IITA) kennel to be trained in sniffing out alcohol from a distance.

Each puppy has been bought for Rs 1.75 lakh.

A senior police officer said the puppies would be deployed by March 2019, after completing the mandatory nine-month special training at IITA. "It took almost a year to trace the puppies. Finally, they were purchased and sent to Telangana for the training," the police officer said.

He said dog handlers would be sent to Telangana to stay with the puppies so that they can easily assimilate with them by the time they join the police force. Security forces generally use sniffer dogs to detect explosives and to catch criminals.

Additional director-general of the criminal investigation department, Vinay Kumar, said the trained dogs will assist the police and excise officials examine vehicles and luggage at check-posts in border districts, bus stands and railway stations in the state.

These specially trained canines will be deployed to detect hidden liquor stocks at residences as well as public places. "They will also be useful in detecting narcotic drugs of all kinds," he said, adding that more dogs would be inducted after going through their performance. In the first phase only 20 dogs will be inducted, he said. The dog squad functions under the CID. Sources said a total of 45 labradors were purchased in 2016 from the army's Remount and Veterinary Corps Centre and College in Meerut for Rs 63.53 lakh.

At present, the state police have 51 dogs; 27 sniffers and 23 trackers. But these canines can't sniff out liquor.

Earlier, the state government had planned to install fully-body truck scanners at five check posts in the state to check smuggling.

But the plan did not materialise as it would have been very expensive to install full-body truck scanners that cost around Rs 600 crore. "Such scanners would have also led to traffic jams on national highways. So the idea was dropped immediately," said an IG-rank officer.

Sources said liquor continued to flow in Bihar despite total prohibition being enforced in April 2016. On Friday, excise department sleuths seized Indian-made foreign liquor worth over Rs 2 crore from a potato-laden truck in Muzaffarpur.

The state government has already created a post of IG/ADG (prohibition) to effectively implement provisions of the Bihar Prohibition and Excise Act, 2016.