Neera, the unfermented palm sap drink, has come to Bihar Divas 2017 but stop before you think you can take the beverage home.

For the Bihar Divas celebrations at Patna's Gandhi Maidan, the Bihar Rural Livelihood Promotion Society (better known as Jeevika) has set up a stall selling palm products. Among the items available is neera - the fresh sap collected from a palm tree before sunrise that becomes fermented if you keep it in sunlight.

This is the first time neera is being sold in the state, and many residents made a beeline for the stall with bottles in hand to take the drink home for family members and friends to taste. Manoj Kumar, a resident of Muzaffarpur, was one among those.

He had gone to the stall and demanded 2 litres of neera in a bottle to carry home. The man in charge of the stall told him: "You cannot take it home, you can drink it here."

Manoj asked the reason for the refusal. The man at the stall, who refused to divulge his name, said: "Once neera comes in direct contact with sunlight, it becomes fermented and turns into toddy. It becomes alcoholic so senior officials have directed us to not allow anyone to take neera back home."

The man from Muzaffarpur assured the stall in-charge he would keep the drink in the freezer and ensure it doesn't come in direct contact with sunlight but to no avail. Left with nothing else to do, Manoj drank two glasses of neera priced at Rs 10 each and moved on.

If some were excited about tasting the unfermented drink, others did not find anything special in it. Rintu Pandey from Rohtas district called it useless and tasteless. "I did not like the taste of neera at all. It was a complete waste of money. Let me tell you that this plan of neera is going to be a big flop," said Pandey.

After clamping total prohibition, chief minister Nitish Kumar had announced to facilitate processing, bottling and sale of neera to lend support to those who depended on the toddy business, which is now banned in Bihar.

At the Bihar Divas stall, the benefits of neera were written in one corner of the stall - good for the heart, the digestive system and better circulation - and as it was kept in a steel pot with ice bricks around it, the drink was being served chilled to the customers.

The stall also has peda and jaggery made of palm. One packet of peda with 10 pieces insides costs Rs 80. Santosh Kumar, a government school teacher from Nalanda, purchased a packet eager to try out the new product. "This is the first time I have purchased peda made of palm... let's see how it tastes," he said.

The Bihar government has started manufacturing plants for the production of neera, palm jaggery and peda in Hajipur (Vaishali), Khijarsarai (Gaya), Biharsharif (Nalanda) and Barari (Bhagalpur). Each of these plants has the capacity to process 10,000 litres of unfermented palm sap daily.

Shailesh Kumar, the Jeevika manager (livelihood) of Vaishali district, said 12 districts have opened neera counters, but this was the first time that the drink was made available to the public.