Residents have flooded excise officials in the district with information about bootleggers after chief minister Nitish Kumar's printed appeal for joining the anti-liquor fight was recently distributed.

The pamphlets, distributed on Sunday, have urged the people to participate in the human chain in support of prohibition on January 21. t carries phone numbers of excise and administrative officials the people can approach with information.

Around 2 lakh pamphlets were printed by district authorities, and distributed among the people by panchayat representatives, block officials and policemen in an attempt to garner support for the January 21 human chain.

Muzaffarpur district magistrate Dharmendra Kumar said bootleggers now take routes passing through the rural areas to avoid being caught by the police on the highways. So, both excise officials and police officers have trained village guards posted close to the state and national highways to gather intelligence from the people to counter the illegal liquor trade. "The bootleggers are smuggling liquor into Bihar from the adjoining states by changing the excisestickers on the bottles," said Dharmendra. "The excise department and district police have seized 10 trucks loaded with liquor smuggled from neighbouring states in the past two months from the rural areas."

The chief minister's pamphlet has had its desired effect as according to Dharmendra, villagers have been calling the authorities concerned about bootleggers since receiving the details.

The district magistrate is leaving no stone unturned and has sent text messages to pensioners, traders, and beneficiaries of government schemes to participate in the human chain. The administration will also organise a padyatra (march) on January 19 and 20 in Muzaffarpur with around 20,000 people to generate awareness about the human chain programme scheduled for January 21.

Private and government schools, with help from the guardians of their students, have also been organising chetna sabhas to increase awareness about the event.

The human chain is expected to be 11,292km long with over 2 crore people joining in.

The event, which was announced by the chief minister in November last year, has gathered great traction as Isro has been invited to take real time images of the event with five satellites.