Alcohol has a variety of uses; from industry to motor fuel and liquor making. There are about 100 distilleries in the country with annual installed capacity of 5.5 lakh kilolitres of power alcohol. Besides there are 70 sugar mills with distillery units producing power and industrial alcohol.
Uttar Pradesh has more than 50 per cent of total installed capacity of alcohol in the country. It has 20 sugar mills with alcohol distilleries. Among other important producers mention may be made of Maharashtra (10%), Andhra Pradesh (10%), Bihar (5 per cent), Karnataka, Punjab, and West Bengal.
India has a well developed liquor industry starting in the last part of the 19th century. It includes different brands of wine, whisky, brandy, rum, gin and beer. The total production of liquor was 40,159 kilolitres in 1994-95 which increased to 71,528 kilolitres in 1997-98 exhibiting an increase of 78 per cent during the 3 years.
This is due to the lifting of ban on the manufacture and sale of liquor in many states of the country. About 56 per cent of the total production of liquor is in the form of country liquor. Besides molasses, grapes, apple, cashew, mahua, coconut, date palm, rice and barley are other raw materials used in liquor making.
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At present, there are 33 units manufacturing beer having an estimated annual output of 4.33 lakh kiloliters in 1997-98; the output in 1994-95 being 2.78 lakh kilolitres. Solan in Himachal Pradesh; Rampur, Nawabganj, Rose and Daurala in Uttar Pradesh; Kolhapur in Maharashtra; Bangalore in Karnataka; Chennai in Tamil Nadu; Bhadrakali and Kalyani in West Bengal; Udaipur in Rajasthan and Jagatjitnagar in Punjab are important centers producing liquor and beer in the country
India imports some good quality liquor from foreign countries mainly from Europe and America. It also exports Indian made liquor to neighbouring countries of Asia and Africa. During 1995-96 India imported Rs. 40.93 crore worth of beverages, spirits and vinegar against the total export of Rs. 45.85 crores. The corresponding figures for the year 1988-
of foreign tourists was 2.37 million whichuted a foreign exchange earnings of $ 3 billion, other countries in our neighbourhood like Thailand, Indonesia and Singapore had higher als and better earnings.
of foreign tourists was 2.37 million whichuted a foreign exchange earnings of $ 3 billion, other countries in our neighbourhood like Thailand, Indonesia and Singapore had higher als and better earnings.
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Development
Table 23. X shows that there has been significant increase in the international tourism after Independence. While the total arrival of international tourists was only 16,380 contributing Rs. 7.7 crores to the country’s economy in 1951, the arrivals increased to 2.38 million providing $ 3 billion of foreign exchange to the country in 2002. During 1998 the number of international tourists
increased to 23,74,094 with foreign exchange earnings of $ 3 billion (in 2000 about 26.4 lakh tourists). Similarly there has been considerable increase in domestic tourism. According to the Ministry of Tourism, Govt, of India about 150 million people travelled from their place of residence to outside places for business, leisure or pilgrimage (in 1999 about 178 million people).
Amongst the countries contributing more than 50,000 tourists to India during 2000 Bangladesh tops the list (441,168), fol- lowedby United Kingdom (354,217), US A (309,309), Sri Lanka (128,444), Canada (98,259), Australia (90,456), France (89,565), Germany (84,889), Japan (79,167) Malaysia (57,927) and Italy (52,529).
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Gulmarg, Pahalgam, Srinagar, Jammu (Jammu and Kashmir); Shimla, Manali, Kullu, Dharmasala, Chamba (Himachal Pradesh); Dehradun, Nainital, Mussorie, Rishikesh, Badrinatli, Kedarnath, Ranikhet (Uttaranchal); Agra, Varanasi (Samath), Lucknow, Kushinagar, Mathura, Ayodhya, Allahabad (Uttar Pradesh); Patna, Nalanda, Gaya, Bodhgaya, Rajgir (Bihar); Ranchi (Jharkhand); Kolkata, Santiniketan, Daijeeling (West Bengal); Guwahati, Kaziranga (Assam); Shillong (Meghalaya), Bhubaneshwar, Chilka Lake, Puri, Konark (Orissa); Tirupati, Udayagiri, Hyderabad, Amravati, Warangal, Vishakhapatnam (Andhra Pradesh); Chennai, Udagamandalam (Ooty), Kodaikanal, Rameswaram, Kanniyakumari, Madurai (Tamil Nadu); Pondicherry (Pondicherry); Kochi, Thiruvananthapuram (Kerala); Mysore, Bangalore, Jog falls, Gulbarga(Kamataka); Mumbai, Elephanta, Ajanta, Ellora, Mahabaleshwar, Sevagram (Maharashtra); Gandhinagar, Dwarka, Somnath, Porbandar, Kachchh (Gujarat); Gwalior, Jabalpur, Panchmarhi, Amarkantak, Ujjain, Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh); Suratgarh, Jaisalmer, Jaipur, Udaipur, Jodhpur, Chittaurgarh, Bharatpur, Abu (Rajasthan), Kohima (Nagaland), Imphal (Manipur), Port Blair (Andaman Is.), and Goa are important tourist centers of the country.