The telephone rings and is promptly answered.

Caller: Hello Sir! I am calling from Kurthaul in Patna district. A few persons are selling foreign liquor in my area.

Receiver: Give me the name of your police station and location of the place where liquor is being sold.

Caller: It's under Parsa police station. Please note down the details and act fast. These people have a huge quantity of liquor with them.

The details are noted, a couple of more persons pitch in. The Parsa police station house officer is quickly informed. Excise officials are alerted.

Acting on the information, a police team reaches the area and recovers 496 bottles of foreign liquor of a popular brand and a spanking new motorcycle. Four people are arrested, including the owner of the house where the consignment was stored. An FIR is registered. The entire operation takes around 30 minutes.

As details of seizures and arrests filter in, a loud cheer erupts with claps, handshakes and pat on shoulders. Before the spell of energy can subside, another call comes through and it's back to business.

Welcome to Bihar's excise control room that can be accessed through the toll-free numbers 1800 3456 268 and 15545. The control room was set up to help the administration implement total prohibition, which was enforced in the state on April 5.

Located at Vikas Bhavan, popularly known as the new secretariat, the control room is open 365 days a year and is functional from 10am to 8pm daily. The two numbers have been branched out to 10 telephone handsets to receive calls from those willing to offer tips about people and places complicit in flouting prohibition.

An equal number of men and women have been hired by the Bihar State Electronics Development Corporation (Beltron) from a private agency and provided to the excise department. They work under the watchful eyes of control room in-charge Ajay Kumar Rai and excise inspector Tariq Mehmood. Everything is monitored with the help of CCTV cameras installed inside.

Calls keep coming continuously from men, women, the aged and at times even from children to give a tip about where banned alcoholic beverages are being consumed or traded. So far around 8,800 such calls have been received. Action has been initiated in over 8,700 of them and the complaints closed.

"We have been overwhelmed by the response from the public. The complaints received on our toll-free numbers are increasing, and we are receiving around 100 calls daily," Tariq said.

All complaints are duly registered with the help of a software. The entire information, right from the district and police station concerned, panchayat and locality, is noted down. Landmarks are sought from the callers to ensure that police and excise teams can reach with ease. The calls are taken seriously, and have led to several seizures since April.

"This was a unique initiative in Bihar. We have honed our skills over the last five months. I am not boasting. If we get precise information, we can apprehend those flouting prohibition within 20 to 30 minutes. We have already done it in a few cases," said Rai.

Excise officials say accurate information is what has been lacking. Only about 10 per cent of the telephone complaints have resulted in recovery of liquor. The rest were from callers with either incorrect information, or wishing to settle scores with rivals.

"But even 10 per cent is not a small number. The complaints have come from all over the state, and show that awareness about prohibition and where to complain in case of violation of the ban is increasing among the masses," a senior excise official said.

Another official pointed out that those engaged in illegal liquor trade and smuggling are also continuously evolving and changing their modus operandi.

"They (smugglers) keep shifting their locations. They have changed their timings too, now doing business during late night hours, in the dark when the police presence is thin," he added.

Back in the control room, some of the call handlers point to the continuous rings to say that many of them could also be crank calls, hoax calls, or not related to prohibition at all.

"These days a large number of callers ask about flood relief. Many callers ask about when they will get Indira Awas Yojana houses, or complain about supply of food grain through PDS shops, mobile SIM cards, or money of post-matric scholarships. We tell them that this is not the right place for such complaints," one control room employee told The Telegraph .

Sometimes the calls lead to illegal acts of a different kind. A few months ago, a caller made a complaint about illicit liquor trade happening in a house on the outskirts of Marhaura in Saran district. When the police raided the place, no liquor was recovered, but they managed to bust a flourishing sex-racket going on there.

A girl working at the control room chipped in to say that she has received 20 blank calls since the day began, and the person on the other side of the line just kept silent. At times the calls are from people in search of romantic liaisons. If their calls are answered by males, they pester them to give the phone to girls.

"One caller simply popped a marriage proposal to me and started insisting that I accept it. He was calling again and again. I then asked him to come to our control room. He disappeared after that," another girl shared.

The excise department has now started taking action against such callers. The police were recently provided mobile numbers of such persons and asked to initiate action against them.

The 10 contract employees, who man the calls coming in, have a salary of Rs 13,400 per month, and get Rs 10,072 in hand after various deductions related to provident fund and insurance.

"The working hours are long, salary is low and we do not get even a single leave. We have been working even on August 15 and May Day. We possess skills and experience required for manning such control rooms, and wish that the excise department will do something for us," a control room employee said.

They may not be happy with their remuneration and work conditions, but do they support prohibition? "Yes. With heart and soul," they say unanimously.