Calcutta, June 20: The government will introduce a bill that proposes a maximum punishment of 14 years in jail for hooch makers in case of deaths.

The minimum punishment will be 10 years’ imprisonment. The bill will be introduced in the ongoing monsoon session of the Assembly.

Sources said the punishment would come with a fine. The amount is yet to be fixed. The decisions were taken at a cabinet meeting chaired by chief minister Mamata Banerjee at Writers’ today.

A minister who attended the meeting said the West Bengal Excise Act, which now lays down a punishment of one year’s imprisonment for hooch manufacturers in case of death from spurious liquor, would be amended.

People accused in such cases are also booked under Section 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) of the Indian Penal Code. This invites a maximum punishment of 10 years in jail.

The government’s move comes in the wake of the deaths of over 170 people in South 24-Parganas’ Mograhat after consuming hooch in December last year.

But those accused before the act is amended will not come under the purview of the new provisions.