Ranchi, Oct. 7: It is going to be free flow of liquor for residents of Ranchi this Durga Puja. The district administration has declared only Dashami as ?dry day?.

The decision to have just one ?dry day? during Durga Puja started after the Chhattisgarh-based Narottamaka Mercantile Pvt Limited bagged the licence for alcohol business in the state on July 1, 2004, a source said.

Earlier, it used to be for three days ? Ashtami, Navami and Dashami.

Annually, the state has 11 dry days and according to the excise department only the Deputy Commissioner can declare a dry day.

?Jharkhand sees dry day on August 15, January 26, October 2, on Holi, Dussehra, Diwali, Id-ul-Fitr, Muharram, Ram Navami, Mahavir and Buddha Jayanti. But the DC can declare more dry days over law and order situations in a district,? said an excise official.

?The changes came in after the ?syndicate? (as is Narottamaka Mercantile referred to in the state) took over the liquor business here. During Durga Puja, huge crowds turn up on the streets for all the three days and a chance of criminal activity is the highest. People get drunk, tend to indulge in eve-teasing and even molestation of girls. There have been such incidents before. Drunken brawls are also common. A dry day for the three days generally reduces these occurrences. But then it all depends upon the discretion of the DC,? added the official.

The official also informed The Telegraph that if the district administration announced an extra dry day, the government has to return a day?s licence fee that it collects from the syndicate annually.

?It is a lot of money. Different districts have different fee structures. For Ranchi it is Rs 6.6 lakh per day. For a month, it is Rs 1.98 crore. The district administration is thus forced to think twice before declaring a dry day,? he added.

?Unlike today?s consolidated business, it was earlier under various liquor merchants who needed to pay a much lower licence fee. The administration, too, could easily declare a dry day since the amount to be returned was equally less,? said a senior official of the district administration on condition of anonymity.

The officials of Narottamaka Mercantile, however, stayed from making any comments. ?We are not supposed to speak on this. And it is also absolutely wrong to say that we create any kind of pressure to reduce dry days. The business is very simple and it lies with the district administration to decide on the number of dry days. Why should we interfere?? a syndicate official said on condition of anonymity.

All attempts to contact Ranchi district commissioner Pradeep Kumar failed. His mobile was switched off and repeated calls at his office and residence did not yield any result.